At least, the module has withstood the criticism of a fairly large base of users.

What's the basis for this argument? There's nothing on CPAN that guarantees, enforces, or even promotes that uploaded modules first get a large base of users, or has to withstand criticism. I can upload any code I want, and when you are browsing CPAN, you have no idea if the code has any actual users, or whether there was any criticism, and if so, what I have done with it.

Please, we should stop assigning magic properties to CPAN, or code that's on CPAN. CPAN is a storage and distribution vehicle. Nothing more than that. There are good pieces of code on CPAN, and there's crap. But the mere fact that code is on CPAN proves absolutely nothing of its usefulness or quality.

As a programmer, you should recognize that. A programmer who totally ignores CPAN is wasting a lot of effort. But a programmer that blindly considers anything on CPAN as quality can actually be quite harmful for the environment he's working in.