Thanks for everyone's input. I must admit I am a little bit dismayed by the negativity. Regardless, I continued development and made my own parser. This has been well tested and works great! Posting the code here so it may be of use to someone else:

#!/usr/bin/perl
package XMLcrude;

use strict;
use warnings;

sub new{
my $this = shift;
my $class = ref($this) || $this;
my $self={@_};
bless $self, $class;
return $self;
}

# If you do not have access to XML::Simple, and are not allowed to ins
+tall it, this can replace it in most situations.


#############################
# XML IN - suck in the XML file
#
sub XMLin{
my $self=shift;
$self->{file}=shift||return;

#load file into @file
open my $FILE, '<', $self->{file} or die "Unable to open log file [$se
+lf->{file}], system said $!";
if(<$FILE> !~ /<?xml/){die 'Not an XML file!  Header "<?xml" is missin
+g!'}
my @file=<$FILE>;
close $FILE;

my $data=join '',@file;
   $data=~s/<!--.*?-->//gs;  # Strip out comments.

my ($root,$value,@key);
foreach my $tag(split(/(<.*?>)/,$data)){
    
    #found a tag, so create a hash element for it.
    if($tag=~/<((?:[^>'"]*|(['"]).*?\1)*)>/){

        #start tag - add element depth
        if($tag!~/^<\//){
            $tag=~s/<|>//g;    # Remove brackets
            push @key,$tag;                        # <START>  Starting
+ tag, so remember this tag name.  Used to make key for hash element.

        #end tag - remove element depth
        }else{

            if(defined $value){    #record data
                my $key=\$self;                # Get reference to our 
+self. (A reference to the reference to the hash that stores our data)
                $key=\($$key->{$_}) for @key;    # Build up hash eleme
+nt key using the tags we gathered in @key
                $value=~s/\n|\t//g;                # Clean up the valu
+e.
                if(length $value){$$key= $value;}    # Assign value, i
+ncluding zeros, to hash element reference if there is data
                $value='';                        # Clear value for ne
+xt round.
            }
            $root=pop @key;                        # </END> Closing ta
+g, so lower the element depth... also, remember the very last value r
+emoved.
        }

        next;                                    # We are done process
+ing tags.
    }

    $value.=$tag;                                # Record value
}

return $self->$root};                            # XML document should
+ start with a "root" container element that holds everything.
}

1;
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