[expeditious]

> Will Perl 6 be able to turn things around, or is it too late?

Community plays a large role here, I think.

The Perl community (both 5 and 6) overall has a practical can-do attitude. This attracts users.

Perl 5 seems to have more grumpy (though still helpful) users.

Perl 6 has Larry and lots of courteous, friendly, and helpful users. It's a community you want to be a part of.

The Python community has a "no, you're wrong -- that's not Pythonic" feel to it which I think turns a lot of users off to Python.

So, I think Perl 6 does have a chance. Personally, I'd probably be more on-board with Perl 6 if it didn't look so darn complex.