Nobody stops you for shipping system tools with Python 2.2 if that is what you want. But don't step on my toes and tell me that I can't install 2.6 and set it as the default one.
If you do that you give me a license to call you names.
You missed my point. The stupidity is not in using a particular version of a software you have at a time. But in the limitations you get when you can't upgrade or install another default version without breaking the system.
Of course you know how easy it is to make your scrips use python2.4. Just make the shebang #!/usr/bin/python24 instead of #!/usr/bin/python. Then you can install another default version and if you keep the old version around you don't break anything.
Since other distributions are doing a pretty decent job at it (see gentoo), they don't have any excuse not to do it right.
What kind of idiots tied their system to Python 2.4?