Having a __del__ inside a metaclass is strange, I know... but probably there are situations where you need to do so. Why shouldn't a developer be able to add a __del__ to a metaclass without creating uncollectable objects? I don't think this behavior is by design.

Also, doing random contributions to various projects I've seen many odd things. However I don't think that the bug tracker is the right place to discuss development practices. A bug that causes problems in unusual situations is still a bug. :-)