The expedient thing to do (in this case) is replace the wheel (or dig around in CPAN and evaluate a few, depending on your metaphor) and continue on.

But at SOME point you have to decide if it is ok for you to simply trust in "The Magic of Wheels".

You can dig around in someone's module all you like; run test cases and nod at little green lights (or green lava lamps if you're of that religion.)

But how can you stand behind a (sub)?system you're creating if when asked how it works, you have "and there's this bit over here I got that I use for soandso and it seems to work well."?

I've written a couple thoroughly incomplete hackish expedient templating systems for personal use in my time, being pretty damn self-assured that it would be easy. But unfailingly I've found that there are some interesting wrinkles to be ironed out.

Now I know enough to really evaluate other templating systems. There's no way I could have before.

Turns out mine is pretty much never the right solution. But I sure wouldn't have known it without writing it.

To do it or not to do it depends too much on the context in which you're operating to resolve to Always or Never.