Thank you all (or at least most) for your thoughtful replies. They have been as interesting a study in human nature as they have been informative on the subject of PeRl modules. :-)

Several have hit the nail on the head

- yes, I have written some interesting regex's to rewrite html pages and although that was personally satisfying to overcome that challenge through brute creativity, my schedule probably would have preferred I have a working knowledge of the applicable module

- the plumber analogy was an excellent one, as I do alot of plumbing too. 95% of the work is accomplished with boring old tape measure, pipe cutter, garnet paper, torch, solder and flux. But what really impresses is when you know how to properly adjust a pump's pressure cut-in and cut-out switches to make the whole thing actually work. On the other hand, those fancy wire-brush deburrers may be easier to use than garnet paper, but they don't prepare the surface nearly as well. They're the tool of the lazy man who wants a flashy tool in his toolbelt. And that was the gist of my question - looking beyond the torch and solder, are these other tools really helpful, or just all-too-common hype of those trying to look interesting?

- typical problem of the independent - setting aside non-bilable time to keep skills up to date. As much as I love being an independent, one great thing the employees have is that cozy security of being able to learn while somone else pays the bills. As someone said, time is not unlimited and must be managed. Time constraints have obliged me, in recent years, to adopt a needs-pull approach: learn as needs exceed knowledge; as opposed to a knowledge-push approach, but the motivation behind this thread is a desire to change that.

What I've taken away from this discussion is that there are a number of very useful modules, so off I go to check them out.