I am in the "awk > perl" camp. I think the idea of "vastly more extensible" is a negative for my scripting language, and "cleaner" just doesn't matter - I just want to write it the one time I want to use it and then be done with it. The awk language is really simple and quick to write.

By the way, I think this is why Perl lost to Python on larger scripting and programming projects - it's just easier to write (albeit harder to read, to antagoinze the Python lovers out there).