Scott, you may want to look at this... (this is good)
After developing the fourth python / SQL / HTML based application in a row, I decided to abstract the job of accessing SQL databases a few layers, using python classes.
the results can be seen in a package called Custom, which contains the libraries and also some example usage.
From the Advagato page about it...
He may touch on some techniques you haven't considered or didn't know about...