Here are a couple of ideas, first instead of making the font tag optional, just make the color optional, this will let you use a close font tag and only one compairison.

Tr (td({-align=>'right'},["<FONT ".($state==2?"COLOR=FF0000":undef).">
+First Name</FONT>"]),td({-align=>'left'},[ textfield(-name=>'user_fir
+stname' ,-default=>$userinfo[0])])),
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Since you are only doing one compairison you could even call your sub from within the statement.

Tr (td({-align=>'right'},["<FONT ".(val_sub($userinfo[0])==2?"COLOR=FF
+0000":undef).">First Name</FONT>"]),td({-align=>'left'},[ textfield(-
+name=>'user_firstname' ,-default=>$userinfo[0])])),
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Another variation that I like to use is to change the background color of both cells instead of the font color of one cell (users can find the errors quicker). I hope this gives you some ideas and that other people will post how they have done this.

P.S. The above code is untested (but I did look at my previous work).