See the call graph diagram for an overview. Using ihooks requires an intimate knowledge of the import mechanism. See the class diagram of ihooks . The import mechanism is coming under pressure from a number of sources. Packages have moved from being a novelty to a necessity.
People do strange import hacks to get around versioning problems, or platform dependencies.
Most of these do not use ihooks, probably because it takes considerable effort to learn how to use ihooks effectively. Many end up with a wrapper module that finds the right code and stuffs it directly into the required namespaces, bypassing the import mechanism altogether. This creates a problem for freeze and installers in that tracking dependencies is nearly impossible. There are other problems. In early 1999, Greg Stein wrote imputil , which turns the problem on its head.