I realized some time after I posted that my comment about it emulating C getopt needed a gloss.  What I meant was that C getopt is the model, so there should be a sufficient argument that adding a feature is worthwhile.  You are making that argument, but Serhiy and I disagree that it is worthwhile, or consistent with the fact that Python is a programming language and not a shell.

We may be in the minority, though, for all we know.