Fix for logging issue

File "/usr/lib/python2.6/logging/__init__.py", line 306, in getMessage
    msg = msg % self.args
TypeError: not all arguments converted during string formatting


http://docs.python.org/2/library/sys.html#sys.exc_info
Switch to BTAFTP from LBYL style serializing

If a user-defined type is able to coerce into unicode, then it should just be sent.
merging in coercion to unicode for complex objects, fixes #9
increasing test timeouts