Their default argument parsing library is pretty horrible - it uses single-dash for word flags (thus does not differenciate between -h -e -l -p and -help...) and they refuse to implement double-dash, citing "there's third party libs for that".
It really annoys me. I understand the predicament that the stdlib should remain relatively stable, but setting the wrong example in the stdlib itself is really bad - third party libs or not, you know a fair share of people will stick to the stdlib where possible.
I had the exact same experience with python a few days ago. Python's builtin elementtree can't add doctypes at all and is hostile to patches adding it. The reasoning being "lxml exists". For the simple task of adding a doctype, one must either deal with a cpython-specific extension that is a pain in the arse to build, or hack it in with undocumented functionality in minidom.