A proper templating module will allow you to do all these things very easily. HTML::Template even which in my opinion is far from the be-all end-all templating module can be tied to CGI to provide the same value defaulting of form elements that CGI offers with its HTML generation functions.

I consider an immense benefit of templates that the algorithmic logic of the application is never influenced by any output format concerns, the values just get stuffed into a data structure and the template pulls them out at will. For example, let's say I suddenly choose to change the display of a table of records to show the records vertically, rather than horizontally. All I have to do is change the template.. which is bound to be quicker than changing code to accomodate for this would be because a good templating language is geared towards data presentation - a specialized tool for a specific job.

And if you want the installation ease a single module provides, there is nothing to stop you from storing the templates eg. as values in a hash. You might do something like my $templates = do "templates.pl";, where templates.pl contains { a => 'single', anonymous => 'hash' } block.

Makeshifts last the longest.