This is interesting and something that is probably worth exploring further. I think the Catalyst restarter has improved quite a bit since you last used it though. It no longer dies on errors, it merely fails to restart until you have error free code. Admittedly this means you have to pay attention sometimes to the restarter output to see if it has actually restarted but there is no way around that (i.e., it can't go to the webserver) without it injecting a controller which is obviously a terrible idea or letting the app fatal which wouldn't be much fun for non-dev users/testers.

So, for my part, Catalyst has solved this issue. It is one of its bigger strengths and I think many Cat devs take it for granted until they don't have it. I develop with the restarter for deployment to modperl and fastcgi environments with Cat and I adore it.

A side benefit to this approach is that you are forced to develop code that is less fragile because it can't make assumptions or rely (blindly/ignorantly) on environment-specific pieces.