It's may not be just a scoping problem. Apache::Registry will cache the script inside a subroutine, similar to

#!/usr/local/bin/perl -w
use DBI;
use strict;
use diagnostics;

sub emulate_sub {
    my $dbh;
    
    sub connect {
        $dbh = DBI->connect('dbi:Oracle:rdb1', 'scott', 'tiger') ||
        die DBI::errstr;
    }
}
[download]

I suspect that there's there's a copy with a connection, but the diconnect is not available. UPDATE: I was updating the thread while perrin was replying. It probably won't affect what he says, as his answer still applies to the updated version