>>6
I agree with your points except when you called Perl, Python, and Ruby "toy" languages. They are far from toys. Every single one of those languages is fun, like a toy, yes . . . but they are still extremely powerful and just as good for large projects as any other language (if not better.)
Python and Ruby for instance, support Object Orientated Programming, and Ruby supports meta-programming. Great for abstraction and working close to the problem domain. I see they are interpreted, often glue languages, but I wouldn't disregard either of them as inadequate toys for my projects.
I would like a reply from you since what you wrote was pretty interesting and most of us agreed with it.
If anyone wants to check you can look at all the great (large) software projects using one or all of the above languages on source forge.