Andye,
Thanks for taking time to respond. I just posted another reply regarding SCHEMATABLE.TABLE providing more details, but to summarize: its not a typo. DBD::Oracle seems to be putting this together on the LOB refetch.
More specific to your questions: 1> No, I haven't tried setting up the alias like that. I think I may. 2> It happens on execute, not prepare.
I appreciate the attention that monks are giving this. All ideas are welcome, and I'll happily provide more code samples to illustrate various ideas on request.