Regarding #2 my understanding is that the FDs are already always wrapped.

E.g: at line http://hg.python.org/cpython/file/b9ac3c44a4eb/Lib/subprocess.py#l798 it shows these always being wrapped (assuming the file descriptor is not -1).

For my test case on 3.2.3, replacing the os.close loop with:

                if p2cwrite != -1:
                    self.stdin.close()
                if c2pread != -1:
                    self.stdout.close()
                if errread != -1:
                    self.stderr.close()

This fixed all my stability problems and races, and can't (as far as I can tell) cause any other problems; however this is a very subtle module, so I'm eager to understand if this would cause any undesirable side-effects.