I agree with you, but I also think it is important for a newbie not to rely too much on modules because even though it will take more time to write your own code, I feel you learn Perl faster this way. This was the case when I started out. People were suggesting modules left and right and I said to myself "How am I going to learn this stuff if all I'm doing is using other people's code?"
Now that I have a better grasp on Perl, I find myself using CPAN much more. I would suggest to a newbie to try and write the code themselves first and then check out CPAN to see if a module can do something they want better/faster (which is usually the case).
Hope I don't get flamed for this, but this is the approach that I took.