I'm not sure how much of a problem maintaining it would be, especially as I agree that linking to the API docs is probably a good idea (though I think a lot of the docstrings in there could be greatly improved).  For one thing, how often has the _intent_ of the IProtocol interface(which has no docstring, btw) changed?

So, first: aaaaaauuugh.  Is there a doc bug for that?  That is an interface which really, really needs a docstring.  Can you submit a patch, like, right now? :)