So what's wrong with __future__? (Was Re: Why "from __future__" stinks ...)

[Courageous]

>I'm glad that it appears that even the Python gods are
>implementing this hideous travesty under protest. It is truly
>the ugliest hack ever--far worse than lambda, which to some
>extent could have been expected.

While I may be guilty of not paying attention, I just don't understand
why it's needed at all? Those who don't want to play with new features
should keep to an older Python revision. This is the standard way of
doing things in the language business. This import from __future__
thing seems not on like a glorious hack, but terribly unnecessary.
What am I missing?

C//