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I disagree that the default location of Python should be
c:\Program Files. The Python interpreter's path name is
often typed into a terminal, batch file, etc., so it needs
to be convenient to type.

I agree that the permissions are problematic; the proper
solution would be to give c:\python24 more restrictive
permissions. You can do this yourself: in the security tab,
edit the permission. In "Advanced", unselect the "Inherit
permission" checkbox, and choose "copy" when asked. Then
edit the permissions to your liking.

I can consider supporting such permission setting during
installation in the future - an invocation of cacls.exe
should do. 

Notice that this is an incompatible change: as currently all
users can create files in the tree, the .pyc files are often
not created during installation, but on first use. If write
permissions are denied, normal users could not cause .pyc
creation anymore, causing increased startup costs unless the
.pyc files are created during installation.