But why would you start from scratch when a single function can do all the heavy lifting for you? The preference for a single character? ( : versus = ). It seems that development time could be put to better use than writing another file parsing routine.
What are users? Aren't module developers users too? Why not give them a documented function to work against? My sentiments are similar. But, in the long run a non-exetuable meta-data file is a bit simpler - you can distribute only that file, and no trust between the parties is required to read it in.
I've implemented both kinds of meta-data file type, where the plain text is the origin. The php file is generated off the text, can be concatenated into one big thing and can be used uniformely.