Linus Torvalds used to recommend 80 characters and tab-indentation in the Linux kernel because he argued that if your code was getting constrained to the right-hand edge (in his words "more than 3 levels of indentation"), your functions were probably getting too complex and should be split up:
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/Docu...
Python isn't C, but I think the same logic holds true: if your functions/methods are so deeply nested that they're literally marching off the right-hand margin of your editor, a re-factoring might be a good idea.
Yep, this is how I feel about it. Python's forced indenting even helps to ensure you hit the right margin as complexity increases.
I'm not interested in changing this rule.
--Dan