pipenv is not perfect but it is definitely headed in the right direction. It is a lot easier for beginners to get started with which is one of the best things I've found.

To address one of the problems, Running Scripts: basic complaint is you are starting a new shell always and you have to prefix all commands.

Prefixing commands sucks but you can get around it pretty easy with an alias.

alias pr="pipenv run" alias dm="pipenv run python manage.py"

now 'pipenv run python manage.py startapp foobanizer'

becomes 'dm startapp foobanizer'

or 'pr django-admin startapp foobanizer'

As for the shells. I really like this feature because it's a lot cleaner. With activate and deactivate you are essentially mutating the current shell which can be dangerous. Also because it loads your ENVs on every run, it's easier to switch out ENVs.