I also have done a lot of php coding, and find that HTML::Embperl with Apache::Session gives me a lot more flexibility and support without a lot more overhead. It isn't perfect, but it also doesn't get in the way. It's not as feature-rich as Perl+Catalyst or Ruby on Rails, but it is very easy to produce solid, working systems in very little time. Like many things in Perl and CPAN, I haven't even begun to utilize ALL of its capabilities! :D