Doesn't this same issue apply to most templating packages . . . ?

Probably. If there is anything special about H::T, it's that its default tag syntax is a bit lengthy. Compare to Text::BasicTemplate:

Hi

%if foo%include%fi%

Hello
[download]

(Note that Text::BasicTemplate doesn't have an equivilent to TMPL_INCLUDE by default, though it can call out to Perl subroutines.)

That's a much more condensed example that, IMHO, works better for plaintext.