This is really a mischaracterization. The point of the book was to address data tooling topics (and the bare essentials: IPython and NumPy and matplotlib); for most data tasks (especially Chapters 7, 9, and 10) I would challenge you to replicate all of the data work without using pandas and then come back and snark on HN about how I'm self-promoting, or whatever. The truth is, it's the only game in town for complex structured data manipulation in Python, unless you want pages and pages of spaghetti nested dicts and lists.
The sales numbers already show that the book was timely and relevant to a huge (> 10,000 so far) number of people.
The sales numbers already show that the book was timely and relevant to a huge (> 10,000 so far) number of people.