I like this approach. And I also like the comment by Kevin Meltzer and/or Brent Michalski in "Writing CGI Applicatins in Perl": "I know many people who cringe at the require() function. They would rather have everything be a module. My philosphy is that require() is quick and simple, and if Larry is going to leave it in the language, I am going to use it."

I used require for exactly the same purpose as suggested above - so that someone who doesn't know perl can modify the meta-data. Worked a treat