You might wish to refer to this page I prepared about why the myths about Perl are incorrect. Perl is not outdated - it supports most modern paradigms, often better than other languages. It may have been inspired a little by the Unix shells, but is much more integrated and consistent, especially if you use it with "use strict", "use warnings" and other best practices.

You are right that Perl is intricate, but this is not necessarily a disadvantage. Spoken Languages such as English or Hebrew are also complex and have a lot of fine points, and Perl aims to emulate them. See also
what Bjarne Stroustrup says about how language complexity is unavoidable.

Perl's problem is not technological - it's an excellent technology, and has a lot of extra functionality in CPAN. It's main problem is that of image, community, concentration of effort, etc. But it has many enthusiastic followers and contributors, and I know some people, some of them young, who have started learning it recently (sometimes after learning more "cool" languages) and were impressed. Perl may make a comeback in public eyes, and I have some plans on helping achieving that.