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One other thought:  A major reason for implementing 
__iter__ in the first place is that objects were overriding 
__getitem__ and disregarding the index -- the __getitem__ 
interface just didn't make sense for iteration in some 
situations.  __iter__ was supposed to provide enormous 
flexibility in various ways to loop over a collection (inorder, 
preorder, postorder, priorityorder, sortedorder, hashorder, 
randomorder, etc).  Making iter() default to using 
__getitem__ was only supposed to be an expedient for 
backwards compatability.  Always using __getitem__ 
diminishes the flexibility and speed advantages.

Maybe the discussion belongs on python-dev. I'm sure a 
number of people feel strongly one way or the other.  The 
question might as well be addressed head-on before 2.3 
goes out the door.