Sure, setuptools has a lot of weird historical quirks, but the help
message? That looks fine to me. It *starts* by telling you about
setup.py install and setup.py build. The only command most users will
ever need is listed clearly in the *third* line of the --help message.
How do you get any more discoverable than that?
There are other specialised commands, but those are mostly useful for
maintainers and some sysadmins. (and --help-commands is referenced in
the *first* line of the --help message)
Most of the time, you should just be installing things with pip anyway.
Most packages are on the PyPI, and even where they're not, pip can
install directly from source tarballs and git repositories.
-- Thomas