Well, it's not just a simple query against the database. On some a complex queries (the ones I'm storing in XML), there are 10 to 15 separate database hits and then some calculations on the values I'm getting back out of it. Then I'm sticking all of the values into a reference (for moving the data from module back to caller) then it is a big help to store that reference using XML::Simple. The whole interface of XML::Simple is built around storing and reading references, so I didn't need to do any 'extra' work to start using it.

The ability to export my ready-made XML objects to other systems is just icing on the cake. In future improvements, I can see the possibility of a customer not wanting to deal with data over my web portal, but being able to import my data directly into their back-end.

I guess what I'm trying to figure out is, if this was a crazy way to implement this solution, and it looks like it's not TOO crazy :)
-oakbox