If it was never intended for end users, then perhaps you could rename
this request as "provide an end-user-friendly log configuration format"
(that would live alongside the current one). It's hardly unusual that
users should be able to troubleshoot systems themselves by requesting
more (or different) logging, is it?

For example, log4py's format looked like this:
[my_logger]
LogLevel: Normal
Target: my_filename.log

Pretty much anyone can edit a bunch of sections that look like that
(with optional extras such as formatting where appropriate).

------------------------

As for mentions of this issue online, I linked to one such on my
comp.lang.python posting. It isn't recent, but the points about the
config file still apply as it hasn't substantially changed since then as
far as I can see. 3 different users raise essentially the same point
(and you also contributed to this thread)

http://www.mechanicalcat.net/richard/log/Python/Simple_usage_of_Python_s_logging_module

Here's another (only some of the discussion is relevant, but this exact
point is raised by the original poster and agreed with by the responder):

http://markmail.org/message/amxocg2nskd72qaf