For my hobby stuff I am similar. Perl and either SQLite or Text files. Sometimes Postgres, but I rarely find it is needed, even for fairly popular anonymous boards.

I use vi. I do use git locally, but I don't trust it, so I also use rsnapshot, probably similar to your rsync. You might want to try rsnapshot some time if you have not. It uses less disk space by hard linking dupes using a perl script.