You mention Apache and Perl. But are you using mod_perl? In which case AxKit might be a good bet. If not, take a look at CGI::XMLApplication, and also see Kip Hampton's recent articles on XML.com talking about that module.

If you go the AxKit route, look into XSP, specifically AxKit::XSP::ESQL (on CPAN) for doing SQL. If you go the CGI::XMLApplication route, check out XML::Generator::DBI and XML::LibXML::SAX::Builder to build a DOM from the results, and pass it to XML::LibXSLT for transformation.

Probably sounds like an overwhelming number of options. So let me know if you want further details!