Switch statements can work well from a readability standpoint such as the HTTP error example they use. However, I almost feel it is more Pythonic to use a dictionary instead, collapsing the function into:

def http_error(status):

  try:
    return HTTP_STATUS_CODES[status]
  except KeyError:
    return "Something else"

Also, method polymorphism always seemed more powerful and intuitive to me than switch statements when the operation is something like:

  multiply(scalar, scalar)
  multiply(vector, scalar)
  multiply(matrix, scalar)