still a little hazy on exactly what mvc means

The Wikipedia article is pretty good. Basically it's about splitting your application into three parts. The model is the data store, the view is the user interface and the controller is the part which handles all the logic.

So, without degenerating into a holy war, can someone advise on what to do?

Try them out. See which ones fit your way of working best. You might also like to add Catalyst to your list. And it may be heresy round these parts, but Ruby on Rails is getting a lot of good press these days.