I want to follow up on what graff and derby said because this is absolutely right-

So yes, CGI::Application combined with a decent templating system is the next logical step from a pure CGI approach.

But it's why I recommend against doing it. It's the next step in the series but not the end, so I say. Unless you're doing it as a learning exercise, I'd skip right to Dancer, Mojolicious, or Catalyst.

I like Catalyst a lot but I'm pretty impressed by the steam Mojolicious has and the fact that it does websockets out of the box.

Plack is a really important development in modernizing the idea of CGI. Make sure to check out the links to it others posted. All of the well behaved frameworks have plack integration now so it won't influence your choice much, just the power and range of your code deployments.