> IIRC, it was a very deliberate choice not to allow float arguments to range

Ignore this bit.  IDRC.  It was a deliberate choice not to let something range(0.0, 1.0, 0.1) work to give [0.0, 0.1, ...], since the usual floating-point difficulties give uncertainty about the endpoint.

That float arguments were allowed (and silently truncated to integers) is merely unfortunate.  :)  And it's no longer permitted in 2.7;  I wouldn't want to go back to permitting float arguments here.

I'll set this to pending;  it should be closed unless someone comes up with a simple fix in the near future.