I am with you there, piping is a very powerful operation and makes more sense from a purely functional perspective.
Method chaining isn't too terrible, but it also means those functions need to be attached to the object, which makes it rigid to reusably extend if you aren't the author. Maybe we should petition the python community for piping :).
The even more ugly option would be function nesting a(b(c(data))), which feels like reading reverse polish notation..
