Just a couple of minor points on your usagedie function. First, exit(1) is more correct, since the command has failed due to incorrect user input. Second, using a here document is more enjoyable than one print statement after another, in my experience. For example:

sub usagedie {
    print <<'END_USAGE';
Usage: setperm.pl [-v] [-f perm] [-d perm] [Directory]
-v, --verbose\t show files changed by script
-f, --filemode\t octal mode to change files to
-d, --dirmode\t octal mode to change directories to
END_USAGE
    exit(1);
}
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Perl's here documents are like shell's, but much more powerful; they are a general quoting mechanism. You can even do things like this:

    SomeFunction(<<'PARAM1', 42, <<"PARAM3");
this is the
text for param1
PARAM1
and this is the text for param3 with $i
variable interpolation this time
PARAM3
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See perlop for more information on Perl here documents.