In a pre pip/rubygem auto-installer world, this would have been one package that had the 26 dependencies embedded as modules inside it. You wouldn't have known they were unless you looked at the source code. You also wouldn't be able to update them independently, you'd get updates when a new release of the original thing was available that included embedded updates.

Would this make you feel more like you knew what was installed on your system? Would you have felt the need to look at the source code, including the source code for any embedded dependencies, in, say, a 'vendor' or 'lib/dist' directory or something?

What are the plusses and minuses of each approach? There are some plusses and some minuses either way. After considering them, do you still have a problem with the 'new way' of doing things, where a program might install along with explicit dependencies via pip (or rubygems in ruby) separated out in a different place in the file system, vs. embedded/bundled dependencies?