I saw Larry Wall at one of the conferences. He talked a about Perl 6 how it was progressing and such (it was before it was renamed) and year, expressiveness what stuck out. It certainly has lots of nice features, too. But at least for me, I realized with Perl 5 I wasn't smart enough for it. I would be lured by the clever short expressions and then sometimes later look back and had no idea what I wrote.
Larry is a great person, btw. During lunch at the conference sat at his table and he was very approachable and warm. I don't remember what we talked about exactly just that it I liked how down to earth and nice he was.
I feel like you but I love it: I am not limited by the language. Not by perl 5 and not by perl 6: When I am willing, I can dig deeper and find more to work with. When I am willing I can try and follow presentations or books by Damian Conway, Mark Jason Dominus, etc and I can get new ideas and inspiration. I can always learn more about this fundamental tool that's at the center of what I build. The tool challenges me in a good way. It does not slow me down. It does not limit me. If anything in there is going to limit me, it's going to be my own brain.
And perl does that without tripping me. Because in perl, the intuitive way is one that's not likely to hurt you. While if you know better, you can work with the more elaborate, deeper features.
I hate it when I have to use a language that constantly limits me. It has happened. I am not always free to choose the programming language or platform. For some, it's so frustrating that I charge more. And it's still frustrating.