(Never using web.py and not being fully aware of Django's status in 2005) I see that overall they seem to have faired well. All you need is a settings.py file to run a Django app. The templating is slow performance-wise but pretty expressive.
I love that the Django community as a whole is pretty responsive to criticism. The 'Why Django Sucks' talk at DjangoCon is an example. My biggest complaint was the horrible User model (you cannot not have 'username' for a Django app using the User model). But they've fixed it now. The major complaint against Django is that it is monolithic, but the devs have worked hard to keep the system decoupled allowing one to replace most modules. But if you want something small Django is not the one for you I guess, and there is nothing wrong in it. One size fits all is never possible to achieve and not a good solution too.