From the documentation: "XML::Simple - An API for simple XML files" which is different than "A simple API" and is where much of the issue arises I suspect. XML::Simple is good (I understand) for configuration files where otherwise you might use .INI files or something similar.

However XML is a bad choice for configuration files anyway. In fact it's a bad choice for most things. JSON and YAML do a much better job in many of the situations where XML has been bent to fit. XML::Simple is fine in its intended role, but that role doesn't match the advertising on the box nor the expectations derived from similar boxes.