Made some changes to the overall structure o things, abstracted out some global template values as I mentioned, and did a general sweep of the pages I've completed thus far to make sure they still work.
Implemented a simple feedback loop to send an email to me whenever any address @theappdomain.appspot.com is emailed to test if it works (because my server is being a general dick about it).
The email functonality is now enabled in both ddirections, or rather, all emails to the app are discarded and I'm notified via email, but the functionality is there.
better defined the email processing, and gave it a basic layout.
all emails work now AFAIK.  On to formatting?
updated a bunch of the template pages to at least give them the content that they require.  I just realised I haven't included a way to edit or delete these posts yet, so there's that, but otherwise it's just more layout and the basic site will be complete.