Well, maybe I've been spoiled by the nice exception handling in Smalltalk, but I like not having to pass error values around everywhere, test them every time, and so on.

You might like to look at the Exception module, which provides a structure similar to the exception handling in C++. It uses a __DIE__ handler, so it also catches regular die() events. Some examples (loosely from the manpage):

# to raise an exception (simply):
 Exception->raise('text');

# to trap exceptions 'foo', /bar/, or 'baz':
 my $err=new Exception 'baz';
 try {
    something_that_could_raise_an_exception();
  } when ['foo', qr/bar/, $err], except {
      shift->croak;
    };
[download]

You can also re-raise exceptions, transform them, and use finally blocks. It is something worth looking into...

update:Yes, I meant Exception-1.4. What part didn't match?