>>since all the young seem to know Python
'I know Perl' people != 'I know Python' people
Perl was/is just so powerful, people have used to do all kinds of things that most people probably don't even have idea can be done. Its some what similar to the power of macros in vim/emacs. People(especially young) are often surprised you can just open vim on a ec2 instance and do something in 30 seconds, they were planning to spend hours/days doing using java+bash or something.
I have both seen and done, people build such extreme, big and hard things with Perl and so quickly, that I'm sure somebody without that context would find it hard to imagine. Im sure you can do in Python, anything you can do in Perl. But definitely not in the same time, not the same size and more importantly- not often.
Programming culture has been trading tool power for beginners ease for decades now, and the market is swamped with tools that appeal and work only for beginners not for advanced users.
In its hey days Perl programmers would do things in a weekend, what the neighbouring Java team had 12 people and a year to do. There is a reason so much was built in Perl in those days. But like most things, money increased, people had lots of time and budget to get things done. Beginner tools got used more often. Perl also got its reputation as a hard to use tool around that time.
But honestly I see so much manual drudgery these days. Its irritating to see that as a Perl programmer. There is nothing more sad that watching people do work, that must be done by a program.