> If this is done, it should probably be on by default on all
> --with-pydebug buildbots.

With "on by default" you mean that the output should be disabled or enabled?

> Otherwise I suspect nobody will _ever_ look at its output and we
> should just remove the feature all together.

IME the refcount is only useful while trying things in the interactive interpreter manually, e.g. try to repeat the same operation and see if the refcount increases or not.  In this case the feature would still be useful, so it should be kept.