Class::DBI takes care of all the basics for you while at the same time helping to keep all your sql stuff in dedicated modules. Once you have your module set up for a table inserts & updates are easy as pie and custom queries aren't much harder.

package My::Table;
use base 'My::Class::DBI';

__PACKAGE__->table('blah');
__PACKAGE__->columns( All => qw/ foo bar baz quid quux / );
__PACKAGE__->columns( Essential => qw/ foo bar / );
__PACKAGE__->columns( Primary => 'foo' );

# assuming we have another table called 'other'..
# this creates a method called sql_method_name
__PACKAGE__->set_sql( method_name => qq( select b.foo, b.bar, o.summat
+, o.summat_else from blah b left join other o using(foo) where b.quid
+=?));

sub public_method_name {
    my ($class,$quid) = @_;
    my $sth = $class->sql_method_name();
    $sth->execute($quid);
    return @{$sth->fetchall_arrayref({})};
}
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and using the module...

# fetch a My::Table object
my $record = My::Table->create({ foo => 1,
                                 bar => 'bar val',
                                 baz => 'baz val',
                                 quid => 'quid val',
                                 quux => 'quux val' });
# update a value
$record->quid('new quid val');
$record->update;

# fetch a list of records via our join method
my @list = My::Table->public_method_name('new quid val');
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I've also recently started using TEMP columns to store values from other tables in the retrieved object via custom join methods so I can still use the oo interface to read the values (can't update in this case) but it's beer o'clock and I don't have an example of that handy.. 8)