You're right. I completely forgot about the difference between carp and croak, mainly because I personally only use croak (and also because I tend to think that exceptions are much more useful in this particular case).
I totally agree that raise error should be on by default... I'd rather have an eval { $sth->execute }; if ($@) { ... } where I don't want it to just die, ya know? But hey, I could just turn it on I suppose. I never remember is the main problem with that plan.