The only problem that I see is that it should be -textvariable, not -textVariable (case matters..). In fact, you should be getting a big fat error with the code as it currently is, complaining about "bad option '-textVariable'".

Given that change, the following simulation of your code works for me:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use Tk;
use Tk::LabEntry;

$a{bar} = "foo";

$mw = MainWindow->new();
for (1..3) {
  $mw->LabEntry(-label        => "Component:",
                -width        => 5,
                -labelPack    => [ qw/-side left/ ],
                -textvariable => \$a{bar})->pack;
}

$mw->after(1000,sub{$a{bar} = "Moose!"});
MainLoop;
[download]

Tangential update: A quarter of a thousand writeups, and counting. I think I need to start attending my local PM-ers anonymous support group.

perl -pe '"I lo*`+$^X$\"$]!$/"=~m%(.*)%s;$_=$1;y^`+*^e v^#$&V"+@( NO CARRIER'