[mst]

PAUSE is ugly, though I mostly use automated uploaders so I don't have to look at it.

I'm not sure what you find archaic about CPAN, the package/distribution distinction is a huge win that the rest of the world still hasn't caught on to, and the file-based nature means it scales stupidly well (npm's scaling issues simply can't happen to us).

Unless by archaic you mean "built as simply as possible, and built to last", which is basically why I love it :)