OK, for the gzip -9f problem I found a workaround. Don't know if that's the right way, please comment!

gzip respects the GZIP environment variable. So, one can subclass Module::Build and set it.

use strict;
use warnings;
use Module::Build;

my $builder = Module::Build->subclass
  (
   code                => q{
     $ENV{GZIP}='-9f';
   },
  )->new
  (
   module_name         => 'POE::Wheel::IO::Handle::Record',
   license             => 'perl',
   dist_author         => 'Torsten Foertsch <torsten.foertsch@gmx.net>
+',
   dist_version_from   => 'lib/POE/Wheel/IO/Handle/Record.pm',
   requires => {
        'IO::Handle::Record' => '0.10',
        'Test::More' => 0,
           },
   create_makefile_pl  => 'passthrough',
  );

$builder->create_build_script();
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