in reply to to REST or not to REST?

Certainly I feel that you are now constrained by your “installed base” to offer whatever you have in mind as an alternate to what you have already supplied to CPAN. You've got no way to know (AFAIK...) just how many times your work may have been deployed “in production” by somebody-out-there.

Yes, I think that “RESTfulness” might be perceived as advantageous for an “instant CRUD” product. It might therefore be an alternate package that you want to implement, thus providing your customers with a useful option.