Yes, real query is much more complicated. So not a weird Perl thing and it's pretty much impossible to quantify the vague Oracle voodoo going on in the background. Got it. Guess it's back to trying to optimize my query further.
Thanks for the information runrig :)
Comment on Re^2: DBD::Oracle bind params and IO usage
Generate the query plan for both cases and compare them...you can possibly get clues on how to make one more like the other, or how to reorganize or break up your query. Or just fall back to interpolating your parameters into your sql...after scrubbing for Bobby Tables, of course :-)