jsp:include will dynamically detect any changes made to the included file. So in general, it is better to use jsp:include than the include directive.

There is another advantage. If the included file contains UTF-8 characters that are other than ASCII, then using jsp:include will ensure these characters displaying correctly. However, if the included file is a JSP file, you'll need to put this at the beginning:

<%@ page language="java" %>
<%@ page contentType="text/html;charset=UTF-8" %>

mysqldump --user=username --password=password --default-character-set=latin1 --skip-set-charset dbname > dump.sql
chgrep latin1 utf8 dump.sql (OR) sed -r 's/latin1/utf8/g' dump.sql > dump_utf.sql
mysql --user=username --password=password --execute="DROP DATABASE dbname; CREATE DATABASE dbname CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;"
mysql --user=username --password=password --default-character-set=utf8 dbname < dump.sql

Use the modified dispatcher.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use MT::Bootstrap;
use CGI::Fast;

# preload app packages
use MT::App::CMS;
use MT::App::Comments;
use MT::App::Trackback;
use MT::App::Search;
## uncomment if necessary, but this adds a lot of
## overhead since it loads up LibXML.
##use MT::AtomServer;


my $handlers = {
    'mt.fcgi' => { class => 'MT::App::CMS', name => 'AdminScript' },
    'mt-comments.fcgi' => { class => 'MT::App::Comments', name => 'CommentScript' },
    'mt-tb.fcgi' => { class => 'MT::App::Trackback', name => 'TrackbackScript' },
    'mt-search.fcgi' => { class => 'MT::App::Search', name => 'SearchScript' },
## See note above about this...
##    'mt-atom.fcgi' => { class => 'MT::AtomServer', name => 'AtomScript' },
};

eval {
    while (my $q = new CGI::Fast) {
        my $cgi = $q->script_name;
        $cgi =~ s!.*/!!;
        my $pkg = $handlers->{$cgi}{class};
        die "Invalid handler for $cgi" unless $pkg;
        my $app = $pkg->new(CGIObject => $q) or die $pkg->errstr;
        local $SIG{__WARN__} = sub { $app->trace($_[0]) };
        $app->init_request(CGIObject => $q) unless $app->{init_request};
        fixup_script_names($app);
        
        # do a little nasty over-the-back jump and setup MySQL on every connection        
        my $driver = MT::Object->driver;
        my $dbh = $driver->{dbh};
              my $names_cmd = $dbh->prepare("SET NAMES UTF8");
        $names_cmd->execute();
    
        $app->run;
        my $mode = $app->mode || '';
        if ("$pkg->$mode" eq 'MT::App::CMS->plugin_control') {
            exit; # allows server to recycle after changing plugin switches
        }
    }
};
if ($@) {
    print "Content-Type: text/htmlnn";
    print "Got an error: $@";
}

sub fixup_script_names {
    my ($app) = @_;
    $app->config($handlers->{$_}{name}, $_) foreach keys %$handlers;
}