I realize I'm coming into this discussion a little late, but I thought I'd note something about ActiveState's PPM service. It does NOT search CPAN and it is by no means complete with regards to what's available there. I've entered searches for modules that I've seen on CPAN and didn't want to have to go through the hassle of building, to no avail. If I type "search Win32" using PPM, I get four packages - API, DDE, Sound, and TieRegistry. That's it. Typing in Win32 at CPAN results (today - 28 Aug 00) in 88 modules. Quite a discrepancy.
FWIW, I'm using ActiveState's Perl 5.6 with 1 patch, so I don't know if the repositories are different for other 5.x versions. All I know is what I've seen.

Guildenstern
Negaterd character class uber alles!