bassplayer,
I believe you are mistaken concerning the AM. From the CGI docs:

Pass the param() method a single argument to fetch the value of the named parameter. If the parameter is multivalued (e.g. from multiple selections in a scrolling list), you can ask to receive an array. Otherwise the method will return a single value.

Using the Vars method to get all the params into a hash seems like a waste in this case.

L~R