The difficulty of maintenance came from instances where a weakness in one link of the chain would lead to problems when I was developing a new link. So there were times when it became confusing to know exactly where a problem was occurring and how to fix it. Plus, changes to the process would sometimes mean changes to all links--of course this would be a problem whether I was chaining subs or separate scripts.

Guess the main point of the question is whether requiring the modules on the fly was an accepted practice or something I should avoid. Since nobody has yet recoiled in horror, I think I'll stick with it.

Thanks!