It's also more portable between Unix and Win32, if that's a factor. Perl modules tend to resist porting to Win32, as the installation process relies heavily on the availability of the make program, and usually requires gcc as well. Getting Unix code to compile under Win32 can be done, but it's not a trivial task, and as Perl doesn't enjoy widespread acceptance among the Windows crowd, it's not terribly likely that somebody has already ported your favorite module. Zope doesn't have that problem, because it's Python from the ground up. When you really get serious about extending systems, you usually end up dropping down into C. And interfacing C with Perl just isn't pretty, whereas interfacing C with Python is relatively easy.
C libraries are the whole point of Python.
So if you're writing C libraries for performance, Zope will probably be your choice. The Zope philosophy is a good one, and I think it's got carrying power. And frankly, the administration of user permissions under Zope is so much easier than under Unix that I think the end result will be better security rather than worse. So yeah, I think Zope will be around for a while. It's definitely going to be worth your while to download it and bang on it a little.