Yuck. If you have to synchronize the template with the code, why use a template at all?

If you ask me, the best solution is to switch to Template Toolkit 2 and do something like this:

[% IF foo_checked ; '<input type=checkbox name="foo" checked>' ; ELSE 
+-%]
<input type=checkbox name="foo">[% END %]
[download]

And you can also change the tag delimiters so that you can make it look f.ex like so:

<!--// IF foo_checked ; '<input type=checkbox name="foo" checked>' ; E
+LSE -->
<input type=checkbox name="foo"><!--// END -->
[download]

That way the browser sees valid HTML and the template can still generate either variant. HTML::Template ain't bad, but its syntax is really too restrictive IMHO.

Makeshifts last the longest.