hmmmm.... I looked in custom_package.pm and it doesn't have a require 5.006 or use 5.8 (or any of the possible varients within it) the closest I've got is require 5.000, which is just fine
I would run it off of the command line, except that I don't have a shell account on that server - just ftp (insecure as it is...)

really good idea, but sadly that was not the problem. Any other thoughts?