..still marked as upgradeable. If I try to install via the CPAN ...
Which version do you have? Does the test-suite pass?

What parse is the error referring to?
trace the program (perl -d) or grep the source to find out

What does the statement "Can't locate object method 'parse' via package 'quote_char' mean?
to find out use diagnostics;

What is the relevance of "quote_char"?
trace or grep