The revamp of the object model in 3.x IMO justified the design decision more strongly, since now methods are just functions (unless and until munged by the descriptor protocol) and the class is essentially just a namespace for them. (Namespaces are one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!) In 2.x, methods were a separate "unbound method" type even when accessed through the class, even if you explicitly inherited from `object`; with this model, one could more easily imagine special accommodations for `self`.