in reply to XML::Smart support

More interesting than the last perlmonks visit is probably the bug tracker. It has 8 "new" and one "open" bugs, some of which are as old as three years.

All resolved bugs are 3 years old.

I interpret that as "no work done in three years", which is nearly equivalent to "dead". You could try to contact the author via email, maybe he wants to revive the module?