Further complicating the issue: At least under some circumstances the pypi package installs itself in a /usr/local/lib tree whereas machinekit installs parallel packages in a /usr/lib tree. Thus it can appear that the machinetalk version is properly installed and tracking errors from this cross install becomes more difficult.
This repository, which appears to be the source for the pypi package https://pypi.python.org/pypi/machinetalk-protobuf/1.0.6 does not reflect the latest updates to machinekit. Notably, for example, it does not include a pull which added rapidrate to the status message.
Further complicating the issue: At least under some circumstances the pypi package installs itself in a /usr/local/lib tree whereas machinekit installs parallel packages in a /usr/lib tree. Thus it can appear that the machinetalk version is properly installed and tracking errors from this cross install becomes more difficult.