I think the logic was that comprehensions should replace map and filter for most cases.

    [fn(a) for a in seq]

for example or

    [a for a in seq if pred(a)]

and so map and filter are 'old'-style and deprecated. But I have to agree, I think that's not a clear benefit. For example

    map(fn, seq)

and

    filter(pred, seq)

are clearer. Once you get more complex, however, the comprehension syntax does shine.

Comprehensions don't help at all with reduce, of course, which has been tidied out of __builtins__ now.