tomblacker:
Your search results are actually pulling in your sub html_record information. Unless you use autogenerate there is no way around having to setup your display for the results.
Think of it in terms of creating a web page. You are actually just putting the format of your page display in this portion of your html.pl file.
What might make it much easier for you is to copy that portion of the script (table) into your text editor and make all your formatting changes and test in your browser. Then when you get it looking good, copy the code back into your html.pl file.
Hope this helps