<plug type=shameless> For what it's worth, I've written and recently released Class::Tables, which you might find useful. It's aimed to be really really really easy to use. You access the database via persistent object classes (same as Class::DBI), but with a lot less fuss and setup on the Perl side of things (at the cost of supporting more complex table relationships). I'd love to hear any feedback, too. </plug>

I'd recommend you take a look at both Class::DBI and Class::Tables and see which suits you better.