if you've never written a script that interacts with an IMAP server before and you need to do so now, do you use Net::IMAP or Net::IMAP::Simple?

Take for instance Getopt::Long. IMO, a wonderful module, and probably used in a gazillion of places. Less useful in modules. It gets quite a number of "uses" by other dists on cpants.perl.org, but judging on the names of the distros, many of them provide applications.

Furthermore, there was a time that if you'd let number of other people decide which module to use, you'd use the stuff from the infamous Matt's script archive.

Popularity is its own machine. If everyone uses the same principle, once a module is on the top spot, it will always remain there - because since it's on the top spot, it will be used more often than other modules.