Well, I went back and reread this entire thread, and I guess I had
partially misunderstood some of the propositions. With the better
understanding that I have now, I am in complete agreement with Piotr.
As a result, here are my new comments about the PHP Policy Draft:
  4.1.2: Instead, this should read "PHP PEAR library packages must not
  register and unregister themselves in the pear package management
  system. On the other hand, 'pear install -R DIR package.xml' can
  [should?] be called from 'debian/rules'."
Another implication of this (if I correctly understand Piotr) is that
Pear modules should not include any .registry files. Is that correct?