It's definitely not perfect, though ultimately most trade-offs in Python come down to readability. I once went down the rabbit hole (3 library iterations) of overloading operators to enable a very shell and pipe oriented syntax, only to later realize how much harder my 6-month old code was to read even for me. So I've come to appreciate Guido's experience for the trade-off between expressive power and readability.

For instance in the things you suggest, reduce used in its most straightforward manner is readable, but it can also be used to enable some of nastiest, most head scratching one liners. Lambda is useful for small things like callbacks, but readability should lead you to a real function with a descriptive name sooner rather than later.