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This is a HelpFormatter function that takes a list of formatted actions, and groups contiguous blocks of optional positional actions. It accounts for optionals (via prefix_chars) and mutually exclusive groups.
Since it assumes 'parts' is a list, rather than string, it works best with the '_format_actions_usage' method in the patch that I submitted to http://bugs.python.org/issue11874 
 def _positionals_regroup(self, parts):
 # change '[arg1] [arg2]' to '[arg1 [arg2]]'
 # apply to a list of formatted arguments
 # don't apply to optionals (with prefix chars) or groups
 chars = getattr(self, 'prefix_chars',set('-'))
 R = _re.compile(r'\] \[(.*)\]')
 result = []
 text = None
 while parts:
 part = parts.pop()
 if part:
 if part[0]=='[' and part[1] not in chars and '|' not in part:
 if text:
 text = ' '.join([part, text])
 else:
 text = part
 if R.search(text):
 text = R.sub(' [\g<1>]]',text)
 else:
 if text:
 result.insert(0,text)
 text = None
 result.insert(0,part)
 if text:
 result.insert(0,text)
 return result
To avoid compatibility issues it could implemented in a subclassed HelpFormatter.