Yes you can use one of the other DB modules instead of DBI.

Apache::Reload is for when you are developing a module and don't want to restart apache everytime you make a change to your module, or when the module's on the server get updated very often.

It is possible to dynamically select a module to use however you don't need to very often. and you probably don't need to in this case. That being said:

#Dynamically choose betten Foo and Bar
my $type = 'foo';
if ($type eq 'foo') {
    eval "use Foo";
}
else {
    eval "use Bar";
}
[download]

note that you have to use a quoted string for the eval rather than a block. if you use a block it will always 'use' that module.