use --> compile time
require --> run time

You may also consider to use either Selfloader or Autoloader in your own modules in order to load needed methods at run time.

If you have the option to run mod_perl (and your own app is prepared for mod_perl) than you'll speed up things a lot switching to mod_perl (or FastCGI) because the modules are only compiled once per Apache process opposed to a CGI-environment where all modules need to be compiled for each call to your app.

RL