If anyone familiar with the Python backend wants to weigh in on/help land https://github.com/pantsbuild/pants/issues/21048 / https://github.com/pantsbuild/pants/pull/21948, I'd love that. I've done the legwork of diagnosing what goes wrong and put up a "fix", but I'm not familiar at all with how the Python backend works or what other systems might be affected.

oh, that'd be really nice to fix, thanks for starting it! I'll have it on my list to look at, but no guarantees about when

Very good, thank you! I will see if I have time today to try the --python-path approach, which seems like a more proper solution.