Ah. I must confess that I don't really think of the first of those methods as adding complexity so much as reducing repetition and adding simplicity. I've got caught out by hardcoded class names in projects before so now it's almost a reflex to fetch them dynamically.

Actually, my usual issue with hardcoded classnames is that it makes using 'mock object' techniques that much harder, but the very lovely Test::MockObject makes working 'round that particular issue a lot easier now.