One simple way is you can just change your SQL so that instead of selecting creation_date you select

TO_CHAR('mm/dd/yyyy', creation_date) as creation_date
[download]

Another way would be to default the display of all DATE columns in a particular format. You can use the TYPE statement handle attribute as documented in DBI and if the value matches SQL_DATE or SQL_DATETIME you can then have a special condition to format the data from that column accordingly (which could be a simple regexp-replace since you already know the format the DBI is going to use by default). Note: I've never done this in Perl but I've done the equivalent in Java (using ResultSetMetaData) and it works pretty well.

Regarding your question, I agree with Zed_Lopez that your level of detail was just right, except that you forgot to say what you wanted the output to be instead of what it is now.