> Pre-alpha are much better as .dev releases.

No, they are correctly using semantic versioning to indicate pre-alpha releases. https://github.com/astral-sh/ty/releases https://semver.org/

Python doesn’t use plain semver: https://peps.python.org/pep-0440/

The reference Python implementation, written in C, doesn't use semver. But other projects in the Python ecosystem are generally assumed to unless stated otherwise. For example, Setuptools does (but not pip: https://pip.pypa.io/en/stable/development/release-process/).