Issues like this are why I have tried to stay away from CPAN.

You can't be serious: because some modules are "orphaned" by their authors, you refrain yourself from using one of the most useful elements of the Perl-culture? Any and all other computer language users turn green with envy when they discover what they have been missing! The only more or less similar set-up is CTAN, the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network.

Consider the following situation: either you write a module yourself (which takes a lot of time, effort and bug-hunting) or you can use a "works-right-out-of-the-box" CPAN-module? What will you do? And even if the CPAN-module stops working after some time (for whatever reason), you can either re-write it so it works again or write your own module after all and you are not worse off.