in reply to speeding up web development
Catalyst doesn't really do anything application-specific. It maps URLs to method calls, period. The rest is up to you, so it makes perfect sense that you will develop your own set of reusable code for building your sites. It's a positive thing and you shouldn't try to avoid it.
There is no such thing as automatic migration between versions of a database schema and there never will be. If you change the name of a column, how will any program figure that out? It won't unless you tell it. You can use the various diff'ing tools like SQL::Translator (that's what DBIx::Class is using) to generate a starting point, but I've always found it to be a lot simpler and more foolproof to just use direct SQL. If you search this site, you'll see discussions on how to keep track of SQL scripts for upgrading your database and test them.
The cache framework you're looking for is CHI. What should you cache? Things that are slow. If nothing seems slow, don't cache. It's always a headache.
Your updating/svn question deserves a whole separate thread, but it has also been discussed before on the site, so I'd suggest some reading first.