in reply to Benchmarking modules

As you suspected, this outputs 0 because Perl executes the use command during compile-time (similar to BEGIN and END blocks). Consider using mod_perl for Apache, or PerlEx for IIS, or another similar tool to keep your Perl interpreter and its modules persistent between CGI invocations.
   MeowChow                                   
               s aamecha.s a..a\u$&owag.print