This is one fallback position. You can actually de-select "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" off of the Power Management tab of the device driver's properties.

However, I'm hoping that I can find a way to avoid bothering the user with this. Well, ok, actually bothering me with providing the instructions to the user to do this.

Hmmm, I wonder if there's an easy way to deselect this device driver property right from the perl script. Let me investgate a bit...