Perl used to be part of most distros, but I think favor shifted to Python a few years ago.
I wouldn't call it bloat, but yes it is much bigger. At the time you had C (really fast, but cumbersome) and Awk/Bash (good prototyping tools, but not good for large codebases). Perl was the perfect answer to something that is fairly fast, relatively easy to develop in, and easier to write full-sized codebases
Larry Wall referred to the old dichotomy of the “manipulexity” of C for reaching into low-level system details versus the “whipuptitude” of shell, awk, sed, and friends. He targeted Perl for the sweet spot in the unfilled gap between them.
I wouldn't call it bloat, but yes it is much bigger. At the time you had C (really fast, but cumbersome) and Awk/Bash (good prototyping tools, but not good for large codebases). Perl was the perfect answer to something that is fairly fast, relatively easy to develop in, and easier to write full-sized codebases