I don't really want to dredge up all the tricks and traps I've come across dealing with these handlers, but I did want to at least mention the general attitude I came away with.

These handlers are one of the last bastions of action at a distance in Perl, and they cause no end of trouble. The best approach you can have to them is to avoid them entirely; however, some problems just don't seem to be as easily solved (or maybe solved at all) without them.

If you're writing a generic module to catch __DIE__ or __WARN__ that anyone can use, and that will interact well with other code trying to do the same thing, good luck. You'll need it. However, if you're trying to design a framework that will be largely consistent throughout it becomes a bit easier. I wrote a small web framework a long time back that relied on it. I wouldn't recommend it.

My best recommendation to avoid __DIE__ handlers in particular is to make heavy use of block eval and die. __DIE__ is essentially a try/catch design turned inside out; turning it back right-side in might be a far better approach.