If by "it" you mean "our programs" I think the answer is simple - make fewer subroutine calls. If your program is making so many tiny do-nothing calls that parameter parsing or even just subroutine overhead is a significant factor then you're just making too many calls.

It's a fact of life in Perl that method calls cost something (not too much, but not nothing either). That just means you need to make them count!

-sam