in reply to CGI::Application and mod_perl2

Is there an easy way to get CGI::Application::Plugin::Apache up and running

The standard way is easy. http://cpansearch.perl.org/src/ISAAC/libapreq2-2.13/INSTALL

or alternatively would it still be a good idea to use CGI::Application under mod_perl2 without CGI::Application::Plugin::Apache?

If you gotta ask , then CGI::Application::Plugin::Apache is irrelevant to you. CGI/CGI::Simple... will work.