You make it sound as if the author owes you something.

If so that is completely unintended. It is quite the opposite - I recognize the huge volunteer efforts put into CPAN. I'm just wondering if there are ways to improve how CPAN works so that it is less dependent on people being not busy, email accounts correctly set up, and maintainers still having interest in the modules they once wrote.

If you have made a concerted effort to get in touch with the author (and ranting on Perlmonks doesn't count), can show that you are able to close out most, if not all, bugs on the RT queue of the distribution, then send a message to module-authors@perl.org documenting this, and you will be granted co-maint status on the module. This happens all the time.

That's true. But not all of us are able to fulfill all those conditions. Most of us can make reasonable efforts to contact a module owner. Some of us can submit patches to modules. Very few of us has what it takes to step up and claim (co-)ownership of a widely used and fairly complex module. I certainly don't belong in the last category, I'm simply not that skilled. But I still want to contribute.

I will try to be more patient from now on.