Why does it always seem that I always have to come back and correct my stupid mistakes because they're never what I thought was the problem?

As it turns out, the problem is not with $ENV{PATH} = $ENV{PATH} . ":/usr/local/openssl/bin"; after all. When followed by system("printenv");, /usr/local/openssl/bin is in there at the end, and if followed by system("openssl");, it runs openssl.

So what the heck happens with my code? which is a shell built-in function, so it totally ignores the $ENV{PATH} in perl, and re-reads (or otherwise pulls out of its ass) my .cshrc, which doesn't have the "right" PATH. So, now I'm writing my own which (in perl), to get around this issue.