This isn't OT. I suspect a lot of us spend a lot of time just gluing HTML forms together. I feel your pain. As to what I'm doing:

I've been using Alzabo to model my database and store "column meta-data" that I then pass to CGI::FormBuilder to create forms. All the stuff that doesn't come directly off of alzabo I store in the "comment" that you can associate with each column, then I eval this comment and pass to CGI::FormBuilder::field.

Alzabo provides a HTML::Mason-based GUI, I'm getting to the point that I can just add columns via the browser and the Alzabo GUI, define the column meta-data in the alzabo comment and the new field with just render in the form, with server-side and javascript validation. So far, I'm gluing it all together with CGI::Application and HTML::Template, but given that everything in the stack supports multiple templatting options, you don't have to go that way.

I've also got some rough code doing a similar thing running via Mason, and the Mason version can render 1 to 1 or n to 1 cardinal relationships, too. I'm trying to figure out the best way to do n to n cardinality.

I plan on writing this up once I clear my schedule in a while, I'm REALLY digging this methodology.