I still don't understand the "this module is too powerful for what I want" argument. Isn't Perl itself too much power for most of the tasks we use it for?
That said you should really have a look at Text::Template. Granted its name does not include HTML, but it works really well for it anyway.
There was an interesting discussion about it on the TT mailing list, look for the "Pros and Cons vs Text::Template" thread. TT2 advocates had the same basic argument you have: they want a "crippled" templating language. Caching seems to me a better reason to choose TT2, but as they say YMMV...
