I've coded in pearl and read code in pearl. Sure, it got a bad wrap and yes people did stuff you shouldn't have. However, all that is part of the language / community. Pearl isn't great to code in for the reasons you mentioned, regardless of how useful it was in the past.

To put as an analogy, pearl is like an iron or bronze blade, top of the line at the time. Now we have a ton of improved metals to choose from - steal, tungsten, titanium, etc. With improved method of producing ever sharper blades. Why would I want to use the old technology? Sure it can get the job done, but it's tougher to use, and rusts quicker.

If it helps, I also think the same of JavaScript. There are many faults that make it more difficult to code in than necessary.

For both its a preference shared by many, and being a software engineer we can probably pick (some of the time) what jobs we do, so we can avoid jobs with antiquated or difficult programing languages to use. Of course, I use JavaScript (and even some Pearl) regularly because I need to.

Finally, ill be honest, I know like 2 decent pearl developers and neither recommend using it / getting into a position maintaining it.