I am no longer convinced that the intended change is an improvement, so I am closing this tracker item.

FWIW, mysteriously, your unit test always *passes* for me (both before and after applying the patch).  (And before svn updating from roughly rev 53200, your unit test fails for me before applying the patch, and passes for me after applying the patch.)

For the record, the reasons I'm no longer convinced that pickle-ability of urllib2.OpenerDirector instances is a good thing are:

1. I don't think a pickle-ability constraint should be imposed on subtypes

2. I'm not convinced now that the ability to pickle these instances is terribly useful (although I did file the patch as a result of a user request)