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Functions coded in C generally do not take keyword 
arguments.  (Special coding is required to achieve 
otherwise.)  In 2.2, range and xrange both followed this rule:

>>> xrange(1,20,step=2)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
TypeError: xrange() takes no keyword arguments

>>> range(1,20,step=2)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
TypeError: range() takes no keyword arguments

So, removal of the error message by 2.4 seem to be a bug.

Surprise:
>>> str(object=1)
'1'
>>> str(i=2)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
TypeError: 'i' is an invalid keyword argument for this function

There is nothing in the doc(Lib Ref) or doc string of str vs. 
range and xrange that would lead me to expect this.

I looked around CVS a bit to see if the past or possible future 
change was something simple, but I could not find source of 
error message in bltinmodule.c, ceval.c, getargs.c,  
rangeobject.c, or typeobject.c, so I will leave this to 
someone else.