Or is stvn just a crazy madman?

Yes. Although if I were truely crazy I wouldn't know I am crazy. So, I guess I should say "No". Wait, I am confused now.

Is this $AUTHORITY variable actually used for anything on CPAN or by CPAN.pm?

Class::MOP::Module adds introspection support for it, but mostly it was a throwback to my work on Pugs and the Perl6::MetaModel. If someone decides to use it in CPAN.pm,or someone decides to write a module to differentiate between Moose-cpan:STEVAN and Moose-cpan:FRIEDO that would be awesome. But from what I have seen that is difficult to do with Perl, possibly verging on impossible, so I am not holding my breath. However, when someone crazier then I figures it out, I know my CPAN modules will be ready... will yours?!?!?

:P