pycodestyle (pep8) reports some issues on linting for Lib/smtplib.py I believe we can fix most of them and apply some improvements due to pep-572. PR on GH. Are contributions like this valuable?
Generally changes only related to PEP 8 are not merged since they pollute git history while using blame and a lot of other modules also don't adhere to PEP 8. New code written can have PEP 8 enforced or the related parts of the code can be refactored while making a change but style alone changes/refactors are not merged. Also the current PR uses PEP 572 assignment expressions. It's okay to use it in new code but doesn't add value in converting old code to use it. I have added email module maintainers to take a call on the same.
Yes, I totally agree with xtreak. We try to avoid unnecessary code changes. Any change comes with a risk and cost to pay. PEP 8 is just a guideline for new code.
