One thing you should try to do when you have problems with what CGI puts out and what static HTML puts out is to save the output of the CGI as given to your browser, and do a hand comparison of both scripts to see what's present and what's missing in both. The CGI.pm documentation does notes that it will try to format the output to make certain browsers happy, and this might be causing your problem which will only show up in the actual output.

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Dr. Michael K. Neylon - mneylon-pm@masemware.com || "You've left the lens cap of your mind on again, Pinky" - The Brain
It's not what you know, but knowing how to find it if you don't know that's important