in reply to SFTP suffering -- nevermind!
Don't know much about HP-UX, but on Windows I use Net::SFTP::Foreign::Backend::Net_SSH2.
It requires Net::SSH2 (which needs the libssh2 library).
Net::SSH2 can be used directly, but Net::SFTP::Foreign::Backend::Net_SSH2 has a much nicer user interface.
Cheers,
Rob