When you want to sign a key, you should use "pgp -ks". You should never clearsign a public key -- it buys you absolutely nothing other than saying that "I saw this key at some point, and this message (which is a public key block) came from me". Have you signed your own key using "pgp -ks"? Have you extracted your key (using "pgp -kxa") since you signed it? Or did you only extract it before you signed it? This would be the cause of the confusion. If you sign a key, the signature gets attached to the key certificate. However you do not need that signature in order to _use_ the key. So, people to whom you gave your key without a signature can still use that key, it just doesn't have your signature on it. As for the keyserver, it _ONLY_ accepts keys; if you clearsign your key before you send it, then you are not sending a key, you are sending a message that contains a key. This is not the same thing. That is why the keyserver rejected it.
Should I just stop distributing the .asc version and only let people have the longer version extracted from my public keyring? Is that the properly signed copy?
If you performed the pgp -ks, then you should re-perform the pgp -kxa and distribute the newly extracted key. I hope this answers all your questions. All of this, and more, should be explained in the PGP Documentation which is included with PGP. Good Luck. -derek