• It took me through the init sequence again.
• It displayed: commit: wrote /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.0/CPAN/Config.pm
• The CPAN shell responded as before (no improvement)
• When I exited, it had erased the backup Config.pm.bak in /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.0/CPAN (next time I'll put it someplace else)

Would it help to paste in Config.pm here? (It looks like I 'spose it oughta.)