Perl: the language of "geniuses and academics"... Was it ever actually perceived as such? Or was the author simply intimidated by other, more academic languages as well? I'm pretty sure Perl doesn't do tail-call optimization like the article implies.

My impression of Perl was always as a practical, "get-'er-done" language, much like PHP -- and prone to the same legibility/maintainability problems if care was not taken.