I think what you are proposing is a bit different from what
> John suggested in his subsequent message, but a common
> element is the separation of Axes nuts and bolts from
> fancier plotting. I will do that relatively simple job
> first; I think it will facilitate any subsequent more
> extensive refactoring.
This is an odd time to bring this up, when we are trying to prune the
Axes class, but I am trying to remove any pure pylab functionality.
To whit: 'setp' and 'getp' have been recently moved to
matplotlib.artist, 'load' and 'save' to matplotlib.mlab, and so on.
Basically, I want to have some ammunition when people complain that
the OO interface is harder to use than the pylab interface 
Which brings me to the 'axis' command. This is one of the few
remaining truly useful pieces of pylab functionality. Should this not
be a method of Axes (in the current, non-refactored understanding of
Axes)?
In any case, Eric, since you are intimately familiar with both axis
and the phase-I refactoring of Axes, I think this would be a good time
to make axis functionality available to non-pylab users, wherever it
fits best.
JDH