"...suggestions on how to best work around this..."

Install perlbrew. I prefer to keep my versions of Perl in $HOME:

karls-mac-mini:~ karl$ perlbrew list
  5.14.2threads
  perl-5.16.2
  perl-5.16.3
  perl-5.17.7
  perl-5.18.0
  perl-5.18.1
  perl-5.18.2
  perl-5.18.2threads
  perl-5.20.0
* perl-5.20.0threads
[download]

See also Re: Perl version, Re: Simultaneously reading from a file and serving data and Re: When to bundle Perl with your app?.

Regards, Karl