Ethan Furman:
I would suggest you ask for this on the numerical mailing lists instead of here -- and you may not want to offer a beer to everyone that has an anecdote for NaN behavior being useful.I don't have time to start this discussion over again on another mailing list. Don't anyone on those lists read python-list also?
regards, Anders -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list