This is not a question but a deposit in the archive to let others know how to get at the error message when Net::SMTP->new() returns undef, as in ...

#  Assuming 'blargh' is an unreachable host.
perl -MNet::SMTP -e '$m = Net::SMTP->new( "blargh" ); $m->mail( $EVN{U
+SER} )'

#  produces "Can't call method "mail" on an undefined value at ...".
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I would have thought that if Net::SMTP->new() fails, then the error message could have been retrived via $!, more so as the module pod (version 2.31, perl 5.8.8) does not mention anything on the topic. But $! produces odd error message ...

Net::SMTP->new( 'blargh' )
  or die $!;

#  produces "Invalid argument at -e line 1".
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... try the same with $@ or without $!, more reasonable message is produced ...

Net::SMTP->new( 'blargh' )
  #or die
  or die $@
  ;

#  produces "Net::SMTP: Bad hostname 'blargh' at -e line 1.".
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... apparently object construction is being trapped somewhere.

I see IO::Socket::INET -- only beacuse I peeked inside Net::SMTP source -- pod on new method mentions $@ but only indirectly in an example. There is no formal mention of how to get the reason for a socket connection failure.