++rdfield; DBI is as much an abstraction as I see fit for DB interaction; perlish clean IMHO
Now there's nothing wrong in encapsulating DB-interaction in Objects, e.g. the way slash does it, for a certain application in a certain context.
A general abstraction into something 'more easy' is doomed to raise more problems in the long run; at least this is what my experience with java-apis tells me ;-)

regards,
tomte