Shokwave has great things in mind for Pearl.  Here's a partial list:

    - Scripting support
    - Much cooler Finds that support booleans and more 
        fuzzy logic (so you don't have to get the spelling right 
        of something you're looking for)
    - Compression and encryption (but backwards compatable
        with old archives)
    - Deletion of items from archives
    - Merging archives together (there is already some support 
        in the file format for this)
    - Export of archives back to text documents
    - Better and better rules and logic for unwrapping text 
        and derriving descriptions

... and so on.  Pearl will be supported with new features and fixes as long as you folks out there keep supporting it with shareware fees.