I don't think there is anyone in the python ecosystem who is as good as Hadley Wickham at understanding data analysts and designing API's that a budding analyst

I don't think there is anyone in the python ecosystem who is as good as Hadley Wickham at understanding data analysts and designing API's that a budding analyst can reason through and understand. ggplot2 is of course the prime example. It simply and elegantly allows characteristics of your visualization to either vary based on data, or remain fixed to your specifications. Since so many data visualizations in science and industry are really variations on that theme, you can do the vast majority of what you want.