"Note: I'm reading the OP's "... weren't being read in correctly as meaning " ... weren't being read in as intended"."

That's correct. I'm going to work today on eliminating Tie::File entirely, as it has caused other small bits of pain. I can see that it's a useful module, but as I said earlier, I just went overboard with it and could have avoided some troubles if I had of just used the standard IO techniques from the get-go.