Once a language has lost the ability to recruit talented and passionate programmers, innovation dies soon thereafter
Probably very true. However I see a lots of new talented & passionate Perl programmers appearing at Perl meetings, on the blogospshere and with many new code/CPAN modules. So your statement doesn't apply to Perl.
Perl may have new modules, but I'm not sure many of them can be called innovative
CPAN is having a "purple patch" over last few years. Lots of new and innovative stuff have appeared and I see no reason for this not to continue
The main problem with Perl seems to be the incessant trolling, because it fills the same niche at some other language(s) with lots of fanatics.
And Perl culture just don't have traditions of that kind of negative time waste.
The good thing to come from that is Perl Iron Man blogging, instead of the traditional mailing lists/PerlMonks.
Perl already dead in the sense that it is no longer a "cool" language, and as such there aren't going to be many passionate programmers picking it up.
Once a language has lost the ability to recruit talented and passionate programmers, innovation dies soon thereafter. Perl may have new modules, but I'm not sure many of them can be called innovative- most of it is just "Me too!" kind of work.