I mostly dabble with python. I learned a little reading this, and it raised some questions for me. Is there a reason --distribute is not the default behavior

I mostly dabble with python. I learned a little reading this, and it raised some questions for me. Is there a reason --distribute is not the default behavior of virtualenv? Is there a plan to incorporate the stuff virtualenvwrapper does into virtualenv (virtualenvwrapper is a pretty cumbersome name, if for no other reason)?