Thanks. Yes, I actually did know about Gentoo's special tools such as g-cpan, and I do stand corrected about the role of Python (vs. Perl) in that system.

What makes my situation a little bit different is that, because I do have “all those web sites.” Each one is set up on a local, project-specific user-id whose private CPAN configuration (".cpan" directory) matches the one that's deployed at the web host. Each configuration is self-contained so that it doesn't change, even though the web hosts do update their systems from time to time. (Likewise, it does not change when I update my system from time to time.)

So, just as I do not have the power to change the site-perl configuration of any web host, I needed to resolve this problem by means other than “re-emerging” (reinstalling...) the global Perl configuration on my box.

The means with which I did so are like those that would be used at any shared-hosting facility.

If I did not have this consideration to deal with, then of course this entire issue undoubtedly would not have occurred:   the system-wide Perl configuration (as maintained by “emerge”) was never broken.