I was using individual settings before, but using the dict made it both more readable in the settings file itself, and optional settings like TOKEN cleaner, b/c I could use the dict.get method instead of having to use getattr-- not a significant benefit, granted, just aesthetics. Also, you'll notice there are several tests where, although I am overriding the whole dictionary, there is only one setting in the dict, b/c I'm trying to just test the effects of that one setting in the test.