You are correct, I did run into problems you are describing here. However, I found temporary remedy by instantiating an XML::Simple object with certain options that simplify the resulting perl structure somewhat. Here's an example code snippet:

use strict;
use XML::Simple;
use Data::Dumper;

my $xs = new XML::Simple(forcearray => 1,
                         forcecontent => 1,
                         contentkey => '_content',
                         keyattr => []);

my $xml;
{
    local $/ = undef;
    $xml = <DATA>;
}

my $xmlHash = $xs->XMLin($xml);
print "xmlHash:\n" . Dumper($xmlHash);

__DATA__
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<hosts>
  <server os="linux" type="redhat" version="8.0">
    <address>192.168.0.1</address>
    <address>192.168.0.2</address>
  </server>
  <server address="192.168.2.100" os="linux" type="conectiva" version=
+"9.0"/>
</hosts>
[download]

And the ouptut is

xmlHash:
$VAR1 = {
          'server' => [
                        {
                          'os' => 'linux',
                          'address' => [
                                         {
                                           '_content' => '192.168.0.1'
                                         },
                                         {
                                           '_content' => '192.168.0.2'
                                         }
                                       ],
                          'version' => '8.0',
                          'type' => 'redhat'
                        },
                        {
                          'os' => 'linux',
                          'address' => '192.168.2.100',
                          'version' => '9.0',
                          'type' => 'conectiva'
                        }
                      ]
        };
[download]

Note that I force the '_content' key which assures that there'll be much less inconsistancy in the xml structure (HASHREF or ARRAYREF etc).

I was also wondering if you had done any benchmarking on your module? I have a sizable script (~4000 lines) that makes extensive use of the XML::Simple module and was wondering if converting to, say, your smart module would slow it down considerably (and this being part of a larger web application may be the least I'd want to have :)?

Otherwise, your attempt does look worthwhile and promising :-)

_____________________
"We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce
the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true."

Robert Wilensky, University of California