You talk as if the switch doesn't look like a bunch of arbitrary decisions made on the appearance of purity. If more of an attempt had been made a maintaining compatibility, there wouldn't be nearly as much fight. Python 3 becomes a bit uncanny valley for me when I try to code in it and I tend to use a different language as there less of an internal code switch, especially as I still have to maintain large numbers of python2 code.
The truth is, it's Python. I'm not looking for a great language, I'm looking for language that'll help me get work done... quickly and not give me a migraine if I have to come back to it (Perl). The 3 changes are just big enough to catch me (and every other Python programmer I've worked with) so that I can't just program, which tends to push me towards keeping it in 2.7 or switching to another language, where the similarities don't exist to pull me into bad habits. The whole mess really sours me on the language that made me love programming again.
