our $VERSION;
my $version_pod = <<"=cut";
=pod

=head1 NAME

blah blah

=head1 VERSION

@{[
    $VERSION = "0.23"
]}

=cut
[download]

i found a very easy way to keep pod version numbers up-to-date. don't know if that helps in your case, but here it is:

my $version_pod = <<'=cut';
=pod

=head1 NAME

blah blah...

=head1 VERSION

our $VERSION = "0.63";

=cut

our $VERSION = "0.63";
# ...

sub __test_version {
    my $v = __PACKAGE__->VERSION;
    return 1 if $version_pod =~ m/VERSION.*\Q$v/;
    return;
}
[download]

testfile:

use Test::More tests => 2;
BEGIN { use_ok('My::Module') };
ok(My::Module->__test_version, "version ok");
[download]

as i do make test as often as possible, i never forget the version number...

still, it would be cool if you could do

our $VERSION = ($version_pod =~ m/^our \$VERSION = "(\d+(?:\.\d+)+)"/m
+) ? $1 : "0.01";
[download]

but doesn't work with make tardist, for example