Perhaps we should be suggesting resources that detail the use of the new methods that do not rely on ExtUtils::MakeMaker? At least that is the feeling I get from reading slides from Michael Schwern's presentation "MakeMaker is Doomed". In this talk he recommends Module::Build.
MakeMaker cannot really begin to fade away until Module::Build is part of the Perl core distribution. I've heard talk that that will happen with 5.10, but, AFAICT, it hasn't happened yet. And the fading won't get really serious until Module::Build is so well established that
established module-authors (myself included) feel compelled to start including
Build.PL scripts in their CPAN distros along with
Makefile.PL. Then, in a later version, we can begin to imagine
not including MakeMaker in the core distribution. That's a long ways off, IMH.
Having peered into MakeMaker's innards, I can well appreciate what Schwern goes through in attempting to maintain it.
All that being said, what I would welcome (and what you are welcome to volunteer for) is a supplement to cog's tutorial which provides a point-to-point guide for building a Build.PL file to accomplish what a Makefile.PL does at least for a pure Perl distribution.
jimk