You've some hesitation with Perl, but if you stick at it, you'll find what you seek. It feels very 'unixy' and can achieve much the same as shell while being more consistent in its syntax. Its portability means it will work the same across environments. Plus the newest editions have niceties like modern classes and try/catch as inbuilt language features.

Sharing this because its the route I went, anything I'd have written in Bash I'd now do in Perl.