How does your list of wants differ from the final CPAN tarball?

I don't need generated files like MANIFEST or META.yaml.

All tests of DC are in t/

I had the impression they were in run/t/. Maybe I mis-read your initial post.

Update: If it wasn't clear before: for me a release is a snapshot of a repository at a certain point, plus generated files (if necessary). As such I think that the repository structure should closely follow the structure of a CPAN distribution.