But that section you quote would generate pip2.7.exe even when the wheel is installed using Python 3.3. The only way to get the versioned entry points matching the interpreter we're *installing* with, is to generate the names at install time. Or to have a separate wheel for each version, which is what we're trying to avoid.

Long term, the proper solution will be for the metadata to be able to say that we want versioned entry points. But that metadata doesn't exist yet, and rather than make up our own temporary solution, it was easier to just special-case pip and setuptools for now.

Agreed that this is confusing, though. I will add a comment (hopefully not an essay!)