If I feel that my email messages to various module authors are not replied to politely or with the answer I think best serves the community should Perlmonks::Meditations become my griping ground as well?

One other note: politely or impolitely refusing aside, the module author is following the number one preferred scenario of installation found in the docs of Module::Build::Compat: just include a Build.PL and no Makefile.PL and require that Module::Build be installed. Can we fault the author of the Acme:: module for using Module::Build and following the recommended usage of that module?

Can we fault the author of the Acme:: module for using Module::Build and following the recommended usage of that module?

Yes, we can fault the author of the Acme:: module for doing exactly that.

We can also fault the author of Module::Build for making that recommendation (personally I do, and will send email to that effect), but the fact that the author of a module that you are using makes a recommendation does not mean that you shouldn't exercise your best judgement about whether to follow that recommendation.

And the fact is that until the installed base of Perl programmers mostly has Module::Build, and is using a version of CPAN that supports it, a nod to backwards compatibility makes sense. And that will take years to happen. The fact is that people don't upgrade things like CPAN nearly as often as those who like shiny new toys want to believe. And certainly not as often as the creators of those toys would wish.

About whether Randal's message was appropriate. I think that he should not have quoted private emails in a public forum without better cause. However I also think it appropriate to post to meditations things that are intended to spark discussions that are relevant to the community. Which this did. Therefore I agree with having the post, but wish that he had not quoted private email in the post.

An incidental note about Randal. Love him or hate him, one of the things that he does do well is keep track of everything on CPAN, and popularizes modules that he thinks are useful. Quality review is a thankless job that CPAN needs more of, not less. And doing things like pointing out that modules won't install - even joke modules - is part of that quality review. (My view is that a joke poorly executed is a poor joke, unless the poor execution is the point of the joke. Writing a module that doesn't readily install through standard systems is poor execution.)

A side note. I recommended it once already in this discussion, but another recommend is justified. If you want to understand better why quality review of CPAN is something that people will perpetually say we need more of but not generally provide, I can would recommend The Logic of Collective Action.