@markhmoulton -- this is quite an old thread, the "switchable system images" solution that I referred to in my previous post has been live for four months or so now. It looks like you're on the old "classic" image -- the new "dangermouse" image has pandas 0.18.1.
If you want us to switch you over to dangermouse, we can do that easily from our side -- just let us know. Be aware, though, that this will upgrade almost all of the pre-installed Python modules to newer versions, so any code you have that depends on the older versions may break.
You can see a full list of pre-installed modules, and compare the versions installed in different system images, on the batteries included page.