Binary python packages are useless IMHO. If I want binary packages, I make a binary package for my package management system. Running pip/easy_install on a production system is an anti-pattern.
You summarize one point I learned from this article and the comments: deployment and development is not the same. On the development machines it might make sense to easy_install complete package trees, but in a deployment environment the most important concern is a clean system wide package management and for that I need binary packages in a format that the system's package manager understands.
Yes, I tend to agree here. However if you're building an RPM, and your python packages will be compiled to binary on the way in. It's not unreasonable in some cases to precompile things to avoid repeatedly doing it.
