"like how you're meant to do stuff like switching the row color on alternate lines."

Admittedly this is a very small point in your questions, however, I already had the file open, so I thought, why not cut and paste this for you... knock off the small ones. :^)

perl:

my $bgcolor = "#d7d7d7";
for(@{$item_ref}) {
  $bgcolor = ($bgcolor eq "#d7d7d7") ? "#f7f7f7" : "#d7d7d7";
  push @{$nodes}, {
            title  => $q->escapeHTML($_->{'title'}),
            text   => $_->{'text'},
            inid   => $_->{'inid'},
            timestamp => localtime( epochtime($_->{'timestamp'}) ),
            bgcolor   => $bgcolor,
      };
}
[download]

template:

    <table border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0">
<!-- snip -->
  <tmpl_loop nodes>      
      <tr bgcolor="<tmpl_var bgcolor>">
        <td align="right"><tmpl_var title></td>
    <td rowspan="2"><tmpl_if inid><a href=?idisplay&img=<tmpl_var inid
+> target=_blank><img src=?getimage&img=<tmpl_var inid>&thumb border=0
+></a><tmpl_else>&nbsp;</tmpl_if></td>
      </tr><tr bgcolor="<tmpl_var bgcolor>">
        <td colspan="3">Last modified <tmpl_var timestamp> by <tmpl_va
+r user></td>
      </tr><tr bgcolor="<tmpl_var bgcolor>">
    <td colspan="4"><tmpl_var text></td>
      </tr>
  </tmpl_loop>
    </table>
[download]

Possibly there is a cleaner/better way, if so I am sure I will hear about it.

ciao, -xtype

update: Actually, you have caused me to re-evaluate that. You should keep the colours in the template or the style sheet, not in the perl!
So instead do something like this:

<tr bgcolor="<tmpl_if switch_colour>#d7d7d7<tmpl_else>#f7f7f7</tmpl_if
+>">
or
<tr id="<tmpl_if switch_colour>every<tmpl_else>other</tmpl_if>">
[download]