To clarify Amaury's example:

rdmurray@hey:~/python/p33>./python -c "import distutils.msvc9compiler"     
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1288, in _find_and_load
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1255, in _find_and_load_unlocked
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 432, in _check_name_wrapper
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 778, in load_module
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 759, in load_module
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 408, in module_for_loader_wrapper
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 647, in _load_module
  File "/home/rdmurray/python/p33/Lib/distutils/msvc9compiler.py", line 27, in <module>
    import winreg
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1288, in _find_and_load
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1252, in _find_and_load_unlocked
ImportError: No module named 'winreg'

rdmurray@hey:~/python/p33>./python -c "from distutils import msvc9compiler"
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
ImportError: cannot import name msvc9compiler

rdmurray@hey:~/python/p32>./python -c "import distutils.msvc9compiler"
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/home/rdmurray/python/p32/Lib/distutils/msvc9compiler.py", line 27, in <module>
    import winreg
ImportError: No module named winreg

So there is definitely some lost information in 3.3 in the 'import from' case.