From the documentation: "XML::Simple - An API for simple XML files" which is different than "A simple API" and is where much of the issue arises I suspect. XML::Simple is good (I understand) for configuration files where otherwise you might use .INI files or something similar.
However XML is a bad choice for configuration files anyway. In fact it's a bad choice for most things. JSON and YAML do a much better job in many of the situations where XML has been bent to fit. XML::Simple is fine in its intended role, but that role doesn't match the advertising on the box nor the expectations derived from similar boxes.
Premature optimization is the root of all job security