One thought: on Linux boxen I'm quite often tempted to use the packaged versions of Perl modules that most distros have out there these days. This is in line with the oft suggested strategy of "leaving the OS Perl alone" which I don't always subscribe to.

There are two ways, however, that you can get burned by using the version or a Perl module that a distro will support:

1. Debian in particular and CentOS annoyingly so are quite often behind in the rev of things that they support. A non-Perl example is Blender which on Ubuntu (a Debian derivative) loads and supports version 2.61 (I think), Linux Mint (2.67) which is "too old" to do the kinds of things I want to do with Blender. I've also seen Perl modules load in those that are out of date but I just don't remember which ones.
2. Given that those modules can be back-reved if there are bug fixes, feature enhancements or whatever you can experience unexpected behaviors that were "fixed" a while back.

Payback? I use Puppet to manage software loads on my machines. Being able to ensure that Mime::Lite is loaded (or any other module) is a great thing. Trying to add a package provider for cpanm or 'perl -mCPAN' would require me learning Ruby which I don't really want to do.