Seriously the amount of knowledge in chess today means people must keep it simple. So what is a perfect opening? Simple one that is proven over decades and wins also it needs a few different ways of being played (variations) so players can modify it for three different reasons. 1) mood, 2) style, 3) opponent. Also your opening needs to be variable if suddenly something surprising is discovered; (unlikely in older openings). My personal opening repotaire is e4 Scotch, Scandinavian, Caro-Kann. This gives me one system to use against anything since the Scan and Caro are very similar. Later i will flesh out 1.d4 Catalan, 1... g6 Modern Defense and 1. b3 Larsen. These will keep me busy forever and be available to build upon and face any opponent. The reason is the Scan/Caro are the same opening and play Queen side allowing either a g6 or not and similar transpositions for the Modern Defense. This gives a huge range of overall chess experiences but support each other. With so much internet information people need flexible but proven openings that can surprise the enemy, plus these far less 'effort' compared to other openings. Thus it is poor to play popular openings since others will be heavily playing them also, you need something rarer and less well known; thus its important to avoid the Ruy and Sicilian etc...