In fact a common gripe against mod_perl is that many hosting services won't offer it (or at least weren't back last I really paid attention to the mod_perl list) since there's not a really good way to compartmentalize different users' handlers and what not as there is with something like suexec and CGIs. If you're targeting a hosted environment and want persistence you might have better luck with something like FastCGI.

(Not that mod_perl doesn't rule. I use it everywhere myself, but then again I also have always run the hardware myself as well.)