I don't really use many of your criteria at all. I tend to judge based on if its standard distro (AS distro not Std distro), the modules reputation amongst the community at large, and my colleagues and friends here. But the key is usually the test suite it comes with. (I was suprised that automatic testing was not in your list at all.) If it comes with a comprehensive set of challenging tests and succeeds them all I am usually confident enough to use it in dev/test and if I like it and it meets my needs I will use it in production.

BTW, IMO Annonymonk wasn't a troll. If he hadnt said a few of the things he did I probably would have as well.

Cheers, and I hope this thread provides some good nodes, the subject is slightly controversial but also thought provoking. ++ to you.
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demerphq

_{<Elian> And I do take a kind of perverse pleasure in having an OO assembly language...}