I think you've hit the nail on the head. I wouldn't use freshmeat for pure modules. As a user, I always search for modules on CPAN first, then google/freshmeat etc. On the other hand, I do use freshmeat to search for applications, especially if I don't really care what language they're written in, and I hardly ever use CPAN for that. So if you're writing a stand-alone application, freshmeat (or sourceforge) is a pretty good option, IMO.

Well, indeed, to quote from Autrijus Tang's Perl 6 is Here Today: "CPAN is my programming language of choice; the rest is just syntax."

Now, I'm quite sure that this has been discussed here before: people tend to think that CPAN is or should be exclusively for modules. While I disagree with this point of view as long as it's the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (no reference to modules whatsoever), I see a point for publishing whole applications elsewhere.

Most importantly I see no problem in publishing both at CPAN and on SF and/or FM. The different locations may be aimed at different target users, in particular perl developers for the former and "final users" for the latter ones.