I'm not a huge NodeJS developer, but have done enough (and other development) to think this is not a good solution to the packaging/dependency problem.

My experience with npm issues were usually that some dependency had its own build process.

There are so many inconsistencies in how JS libraries are packaged and downloaded. I think scripting in general leaves the whole dependency thing out in the wind.

Now. If we could turn packages into testable objects, that would be cool.