My questions: Has anyone asked packagers who package CPAN distros for e.g. Linux distros about this seemingly gratuitous change/new recommended practice?

I'm not sure who those guys are, but I'm fairly certain they're not responsible :)

How do I get rid of the v in the distro name?

See Module::Build

my $build = Module::Build->new(
   dist_name => 'Foo-Bar',
   dist_version => '1.04',
...
);
[download]

or see ExtUtils::MakeMaker

WriteMakefile(
    DISTNAME => 'Foo-Bar',
    DISTVNAME => 'Foo-Bar-1.04',
    ...
)
[download]

With above parameters, both will create distdir Foo-Bar-1.04 and dist Foo-Bar-1.04.tar.gz