There's no official channel for bug reports. I'm not sure what you submitted or where you submitted it to. Some authors use RT, some don't. It's not a single system. Three bug reports isn't a big number considering the size of CPAN and the number of reports that authors do reply to.

All you know is that you got no response. Email is quickly becoming unreliable because people not only filter their own mail, but upstream portions are filtering mail too. You don't know if anyone got the message, if they got the message and ignored it, got the message and forgot about it, and so on. If you don't get a response, try another way.

The PAUSE system (because we're really not talking about CPAN) does not have a single point of failure as you describe. Some modules have only one maintainer, but the system allows for multiple maintainers. The system can handle multiple maintainers just fine. This isn't a problem with the system. Look at Parrot, for instance. They have a different release manager every month.

You don't want just anyone to upload any module. We'd quickly make CPAN useless as no one would know which version of a module to use. Do we use your version, or Joe's version, or Bob's version? Don't be too quick to change things because there is something you don't like. Anything new will have its own set of problems.

You can always make local patches as the PAUSE admins figure things out.

Next time, you might choose a better subject line for your patch. Instead of "minor improvement", which means to me as an author that it's not urgent and I can think about it later, actually say why I would apply that patch, "Avoid warning when $foo is undefined". Even then, minor changes like that sometimes don't warrant a new release each time, so some authors save up everything for the next release.