I don't think that invalidates my request that more thought goes into a CPAN module than how many cool, new features can be incorporated that many folks can not use for one reason or another.

My code needs working Unicode because I have users who rely on working Unicode. That means at least Perl 5.14—which isn't even supported by p5p anymore.

There are shops out there that still use 5.6 for valid technical reasons....

That's fine, but those aren't my reasons and they don't affect me.

Others are on 5.8 for outside reasons, and will change as soon as a 3rd-party vendor makes changes.

That's fine, but that vendor's valid technical reasons are even further removed from my concerns. Also the word "vendor" makes me think that someone's getting paid. (I'm not; I'm giving away my code for you to use, modify, distribute, or ignore as you see fit.)

I've written, tested, documented, and debugged my code. I let you use it for free. I let you redistribute it freely. I let you modify it and redistribute modified versions. In return, all I ask is that do not remove my attribution from it. Is that so much to ask?

I can't use improvements I've made to Perl itself in the past several years because you have technical concerns that you assure me are valid? Even though they don't apply to me—even though I've given away everything but the credit for writing, testing, documenting, and debugging this code—that's not enough for you?

What next? If English isn't your first language, is it also my responsibility as a volunteer to translate all of the documentation, comments, and identifiers into everyone's preferred spoken language, because there are valid technical reasons why someone who isn't me (someone who's getting paid to work on this code) uses the local preferred tongue?

You don't have to be grateful. You don't have to use code I've written. You don't have to care. Even so, I think that telling a volunteer "Sorry, it isn't enough!" is a bit rude.