I agree with you that eval is essential, but I disagree with you that $SIG{__DIE__} is a completely bad idea. Just think of if like an eval { } or do_stuff round your entire code and you could come to love it ;-) (If it actually worked that way of course!)

I like $SIG{__DIE__} for CGI's in the form of CGI::Carp which is really very useful - it would be tiresome to be doing that with eval. I also like $SIG{__DIE__} so I can write scripts which mail me when they've blown up!

I don't see how you would do it with an END block - perhaps you could enlighten me there? How do you know in an END block whether your program is dieing or just exiting and if you can tell how do you get the value of $@ (presuming that some other destructor/END block used eval)?