@mrshu, do you mean the `string.format(args)` approach? It's more flexible and a bit cleaner, and works from 2.6 upwards (like us), so could be cool. Any downsides (besides needing to change things)?

References:
http://docs.python.org/2/library/stdtypes.html#str.format
http://docs.python.org/2/library/string.html#format-string-syntax