As a Perl and Modern/PBP fan, I have to suggest that CPAN has become a poorer resource over time:

>In the olden days, you could expect to find a Perl module for most anything you wanted to do

but also:

Having 57 modules all called Sort will not make life easy for anyone (though having 23 called Sort::Quick is only marginally better

and it seems that every time I look for a useful module on CPAN I find myself in a twisty little maze of packages, all different.

TIMTOWTDI, yes, but which one (or several) of the available modules will have a usable combination of convenient utility and mutual compatibility? Over time, CPAN has started to feel like the house of someone who rescues animals, but cannot let go of any of them.