> it took ages for a complete Perl 6 release to be available.

And unfortunately, the brilliant minds that worked on Perl 6 spent so much time rewriting the compiler tool chain and basically treating just that part as a research project, that it was incredibly difficult to actually contribute and push the project forward. Couple that with a spec that never seemed finished and a community that tore itself apart because of assholes, and it was a perfect storm to remove Perl from prominence.