This assumes, of course, that you don't mind potentially having a bazillion new modules installed somewhere on your machine. It also requires that the machine you're working on has a direct connection to the Net. The machines I work on (I'm also a contractor) are firewalled. My PC has a direct connection and I download CPAN modules to it and then FTP them to the dev servers. So, it'll be just a wee bit more work than you imply.