Well first of all I'd like to thank everyone who has responded to my post for your great comments!! (I just joined yesterday and I "think" this post addresses everyone as a group...at least thats my intention.) :)

I have tried CGI.pm on a few occasions but I kept getting a syntax error right at the line where is says "use CGI.pm". I have the -w turned on at the end of the shebang line but really couldn't obtain any useful reason why it crapped.
I tried 'use CGI' same problem...
So out of frustration I went back to the cgi-lib.pl and all was well again "sort of"... The main problem I have with cgi-lib.pl is that sometimes even if the code appears to run ok (That is - I get the desired html printout back to the screen) I sometimes still get the dreaded:
"500 Internal Server Error"
"Premature end of script headers:"
error messages and thats all it says. I was able to resolve much of that when I included the &PrintHeader statement on the line before I did the "here" statement. That error really is a big pain to get rid of... Perhaps using the CGI.pm module is better at handling that or produces a more valid or reliable header.

dvergin; you are right about my indents and comments. Actually I'm not a mad commenter, I did most of those for the sake of the post and to be as descriptive as possible. But the indents DO make things MUCH clearer and cleaner. I will definitely modify my existing code. I was getting some error messages specifically near the "else" statements and that was probably a big part of it.

I will try some of the examples that were given and then give an update in a day or two, time permitting.

Again thanks to everyone for your input!! cobes... :) I study & study & study but I still... one of these days...