I just noticed there's a new version of Test::CheckManifest up on CPAN. Sometimes, RT reports and Ratings do come true. :-)
0.5 Sat Nov 18 18:00:00 - bugfix: T::CM now works under taint mode (http://rt.cpan.org/Public/Bug/Display.html?id=22927) + added : ok_manifest execpts hashref where specific dirs can be excluded from test
http://cpanratings.perl.org/dist/Test-CheckManifest
That skips the var scratch directory in the dist just fine...which leads me to the next problem:ok_manifest({exclude => ['/t/var']});