Much agreed with you on your cases here, but frequently someone looking to do this isn't necessarily the admin of the site in question. Or is the admin but can't install new software due to PHB-based/marketroid restrictions. Or the OS in question doesn't support module X. Or the server isn't Apache. I'm assuming (yeah, I know what happens when I do this..) that one of these is the case since silicon39 mentioned that they are still running perl4. So, even if it isn't the best way, as you said, it is a way, and could under some circumstances be the best way.

-marius