Ye, when I am preparing a CPAN dist I usually clean up everything. I think it helps to create a more usable and independent distribution. And everybody wins.
I am a CPAN author myself and I am not from that place you're describing :) I put almost all of my code on github to rot there too. This article is from the open source community perspective. Maybe it's just not emphasized enough.
I do agree that I don't have any right to expect anything from the open source software, I am just saying why I won't use some of it.
Hm, that's interesting. Maybe it would make more sense describing the way how to choose a module from various alternatives.
But what I meant by 'author should care if somebody uses it' is that he should make it usable and understandable for somebody else. If it's not, what the point of making it public and open source?