I'm not sure if I'm filing this in the right place since I don't see hg.python.org in the tracker "components" list, but if one clicks on the "Browse online" link of the Dev Guide here:

http://docs.python.org/devguide/

One is taken to--

http://hg.python.org/cpython/

(which is actually the list of revisions rather than the browser).

But if one then clicks on the "browse" link in the left column, it seems to default to the 2.7 branch.

It is a bit confusing because the browser does not say the name of the branch at the top, which can lead to unknowingly browsing the wrong branch.

So there may be three issues here: (1) the Dev Guide links to the revision list rather than directly to the browser, (2) browsing defaults to browsing 2.7 rather than the default branch, and (3) the branch name should be diplayed somewhere on the page when browsing (or better yet, also in the URL itself).

New changeset 0529e2062ec7 by Ezio Melotti in branch 'default':
#15491: link to the file list of the "default" branch.
http://hg.python.org/devguide/rev/0529e2062ec7

The "snapshot of py3k" link has the same issue.

New changeset 54ec1b493006 by Ezio Melotti in branch 'default':
#15491: change a couple more links to point to the "default" branch.
http://hg.python.org/devguide/rev/54ec1b493006

> So there may be three issues here:
> (1) the Dev Guide links to the revision list rather than directly
> to the browser,

This is now fixed.

> (2) browsing defaults to browsing 2.7 rather than the default branch,

This is fixed as well.  FTR it's not defaulting to 2.7, it just uses the branch of the latest commit, and when you checked it happened to be 2.7.

> (3) the branch name should be diplayed somewhere on the page when 
> browsing (or better yet, also in the URL itself).

This seems to be a bug in hgweb, and you should report it upstream.
In http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/e8851809ae83 you can see at the top, next to the csid, the branch name and the 'tip' tag.
In http://hg.python.org/cpython/file/e8851809ae83 only the 'tip' tag is shown.
I don't know if the omission of the branch is intentional, but it seems reasonable to me to have it in the "browse" page too.

> > (3) the branch name should be diplayed somewhere on the page when 
> > browsing (or better yet, also in the URL itself).
>
> This seems to be a bug in hgweb, and you should report it upstream.

I filed an issue for this upstream as you suggested:

http://bz.selenic.com/show_bug.cgi?id=3559