I'm not a great perl hacker either. It was my first Scripting Language after bash in Linux ~20 years ago. The syntax is uncomfortable to me. It's quite fast. It's a usable general purpose scripting language, that scales a lot beyond shell scripting. I hadn't been using it for real work for a long time now.
I would not say it is a must learn. It has some unique points in it's purpose of using. So I will probably use it, if those points matter.
- great stability of syntax (stick to version ~5.00x if you like to have that)
- great availability(still available in the newest systems)
Some people still use it for current code(e. g. Proxmox, great open source virtualization management solution and mail filtering solution).
If you like to generate good code, you may do in perl too(or even the opposite - if you like).
The version number rised considerably in the last years and wikipedia mentions that features of the not-really-used perl 6 are being integrated zu perl 5 step by step. Maybe those features are worth a look?
Perl 5 version history - Wikipedia
Its Anti-Hype atmosphere appears kind of cool to me.