The other option is to use Multiple Inheritance (which is what Catalyst uses).

It is important to note thet Catalyst uses MI, but it also uses NEXT. Using NEXT allows a greater control over MI and how and when methods are called.

But to be honest, MI doesn't have to be so scary/ugly/problematic anymore. DBIx::Class (which is associated with Catalyst) is actually in the process of transitioning from MI with NEXT to using Class::C3. Class::C3 is a module I wrote recently which imposes a sane ordering for method dispatch under multiple inheritence. It comes originally from the language Dylan, and has some roots in early LISP object systems (pre-CLOS), and has most recently been adopted by Python. There is more information on C3 in the SEE ALSO section of the Class::C3 POD docs.