As long as it hides the footguns, you are good to go. Pytz is not technically flawed.
Well, pytz actually is technically flawed at the moment because it cannot read TZif Version 2+ files, so it breaks for dates >2038 (and it would break if you tried to point it at system data generated with zic's "slim" mode), see this: https://github.com/stub42/pytz/issues/48
But you are right that pandas' use of pytz is benign and as far as I know doesn't suffer the same usability issues.
Yes, and? Doesn't mean it inherits all the usability flaws of pytz.
No, I think pandas actually abstracts away pytz's footguns, so that's a good thing.