Perhaps it's just me, but flow control statements and functions in Bash have yet to scare me off. It's still faster, and readable, to write even moderately complex scripts in bash.

This is doubly true if you have to chain together external scripts - the "easy" ways to do it in Python can have some very major limitations.

I liken Bash scripting to Perl scripting. You can write safe, beautiful, and readable code in both. However, you can also create a summoning circle to the 5th circle of hell if you don't spend the effort to make it safe, beautiful and readable.