...where applicable, code generators written in something more beautiful (Perl, anyone? :)) might be worth considering as a way to sweep the ugliness under the rug.

Damn straight. I did that once with an IVR control system called ... um ... well, I guess I've freed up those neurons (thank the gods). Anyhow, my task was originally set as "take this printed spec, and write a control script". By the time I left that job, the task had morphed into "run the XML file from which the printed spec was generated through this Perl script, then get the sysadmin to CVS the results onto the test swerver". Much pain was avoided.

The moral of this story seems to be: if you're doing something painful on the computer, you should probably write a program to do it for you. After all, that's what programs are for.