The only reason I've used the database for my configuration data all this time is that it seemed better to make one query to a databse that I was already connected to each time a user accessed a page than to load up the extra code of a config file parser, access the file, parse the file and then move on every time.

This wouldn't be an issue with mod_perl, obviously, but I'm not using mod_perl for my project, yet. I don't have the experience or confidance to do so, though I'm working on it.