And the saga continues... When I run my little test case I get:

Uncaught exception from user code:
        HTML::Parser object version 3.55 does not match bootstrap para
+meter 3.69 at /usr/lib64/perl5/5.8.8/x86_64-linux-thread-multi/DynaLo
+ader.pm line 253.
Compilation failed in require at /usr/lib64/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/x86_
+64-linux-thread-multi/HTML/Entities.pm line 152.
Compilation failed in require at /usr/lib64/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/x86_
+64-linux-thread-multi/HTML/TokeParser.pm line 9.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /usr/lib64/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/
+x86_64-linux-thread-multi/HTML/TokeParser.pm line 9.
Compilation failed in require at /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/WWW/Me
+chanize.pm line 134.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/WW
+W/Mechanize.pm line 134.
Compilation failed in require at ./test2.pl line 6.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at ./test2.pl line 6.
 at ./test2.pl line 6.
[download]

So I went looking for Parser.pm and found these:

$ sudo find /usr -name Parser.pm -exec ls -l {} \;
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 39789 Oct 15  2011 /usr/lib64/perl5/site_perl/5
+.8.8/x86_64-linux-thread-multi/HTML/Parser.pm
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 39509 Jul 10  2006 /usr/lib64/perl5/vendor_perl
+/5.8.8/x86_64-linux-thread-multi/HTML/Parser.pm
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 27103 Aug 18  2003 /usr/lib64/perl5/vendor_perl
+/5.8.8/x86_64-linux-thread-multi/XML/Parser.pm
[download]

Ah. So if I grep out the version from each of them I find:

$ grep "VERSION =" /usr/lib64/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/x86_64-linux-threa
+d-multi/HTML/Parser.pm
$VERSION = "3.69";
 grep "VERSION =" /usr/lib64/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.8/x86_64-linux-thre
+ad-multi/HTML/Parser.pm
$VERSION = '3.55';  # $Date: 2006/07/10 09:12:26 $
[download]

And from perl -V the @INC is:

@INC:
    /usr/lib64/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/x86_64-linux-thread-multi
    /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8
    /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl
    /usr/lib64/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.8/x86_64-linux-thread-multi
    /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.8
    /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl
    /usr/lib64/perl5/5.8.8/x86_64-linux-thread-multi
    /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8
[download]

At this point I went on to see what Task::Mechanistic would do for me... (see next reply)