Also AFAICS if you have a "Date and time" as a string there is no DateTime constructor to pass it to. Date::Manip::ParseDate "just works".

The point is that DateTime is a family of modules. To do extra stuff, you install the appropriate module. In this case you want DateTime::Format::DateParse.

But all of this just proves my other point, if you want an answer to the question "Which module should I use to do X" you can't easily get an answer ... you have to either pick a module and hope, or hack some code in directly that you know/think solves your problem.

The Perl DateTime project was set up to address exactly that problem (well, at least, in this one area). Sounds like they may as well have not wasted their time if people like you are just going to ignore their work.