I know what you mean. I'm currently in the middle of writing a JSON parser/generator, and I have these subroutines with lovely names such as _parser__handle_map, _parser__handle_array, _parser__handle_string, _parser__next_token_type, _parser__next_value, _to_json__format_hash, _to_json__format_array, and _to_json__format_string.

Pretty straightforward names, and it positively beats those unruly if/elsif/.../else constructions.

Basically a strategy like that does the same thing as I suggested but even takes it a step further. Instead of pulling data from the greater structure into a variable until you're at the deepest level you care about, you pull the data from the structure into a subroutine until you've got what you really wanted.