I seem to recall seeing errors similar to that on an rpm-based distribution. Would it be the same problem? Would there be some way to recompile dependent files as simple as perl-cleaner?

Or would similarly worded messages on an rpm system relate to something entirely different? I'm pretty sure those errors were not associated with any update tools, but at least one time I saw "parser" in an error I was trying to compile and install an app from source.

Great tip, by the way. I've steered clear of gentoo for the most part because somewhere along the road I'd run into problems I just couldn't fathom. Time to give it another shot...