Module replacement not reflected in publication metadata

That is the case. I just verified it with the following code:

configurations.all {
    resolutionStrategy.eachDependency { DependencyResolveDetails details ->
        if (details.requested.name == 'com.google.collections' && details.requested.name == 'google-collections') {
            details.useTarget group: 'com.google.guava', name: 'guava', version: '18.0'
        }
    }
}

I found another discussion that references the same issue with resolutionStrategy.