I was having a problem very much like that. Permissions, were not allowing me to print to a log file.
I don't like CGI.pm my self. :)
I like doing it by hand, It looks nicer. I however do use CGI::Cookie (only for generating the cookies, not for sending.) After all, if I don't keep me code clean, people get angry, and the PHP barbarians point at me and mutter. :)

NS6.1 really socks with forms. :-(