"It was met by deafening silence though."

Give it time - it's only been a few days. For some reason, Google Groups
doesn't show your post in the first page of results when I search for
logging configuration by date (i.e. most recent on top):

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/search?q=logging+configuration&start=0&scoring=d

The same problem if I search for "logging configuration" the phrase -
again, it doesn't show up.

However, if after a while there's still not much response, it would
indicate that this is not perhaps such an important issue for the
community as you feel it is. This doesn't stop you from rolling your own
format, but gives less justification for adding a patch to the core stdlib.

"[log4py's] configuration file scaled down much more
gracefully for simple usage, mostly because it didn't expose its
internal design like the logging one does. It had only loggers instead
of loggers/handlers/formatters."

Yes - Python logging is more complex because that's what's useful for
developers. It's not really intended for end-users to change - in fact
once something is in production, typically only levels need to change.
This is surely editable by end users even with the existing config file
format, as long as they're not too fazed by the other stuff which they
don't need to touch. If they are - then a much simpler,
application-specific, end-user friendly format seems more in order.

"But log4py is discontinued now as a project and I can't face
maintaining my own copy of it any more."

What's to maintain? Python logging has been pretty stable now for a long
time, and log4py being simpler shouldn't need any particular maintenance
(since it has worked for you in the past).

"I'm getting the feeling you're just trying to fob me off here. You
dismiss the threads I found as being 'mostly about other things' or 'not
mentioning specifics'. That may be so, but the fact is, in those threads
you have five other people expressing in one way or another that the
configuration file is too complex - and I'm sure I could find more if
you really want. If you prefer to ignore them and me there's not much
point in discussing further."

I'm not trying to fob you off - I just stated what I found about those
posts. The complaints you refer to were not specific enough to suggest
improvements, and anyone can write comments about how crufty they think
something is - it doesn't exactly tell the maintainer which direction
they would like to go in. I'm not saying that applies to anything you
personally have said - I'm referring to the comments in those posts you
referred to. All of us in open source development have to balance a
number of different issues and we all have different agendas and
priorities. My position is that the logging configuration system, while
not perfect, works and is used by quite a lot of people without
problems. It's just not high on my list of priorities to tinker with the
format, because the feedback I've had in the past is that those people
who care a lot about configuration will roll their own anyway. I'm never
going to be able to please them all, so why not focus my energies elsewhere?

"I'm not demanding that you do this work. I'm simply trying to raise the
issue and asking you to consider accepting such a patch if I or somebody
else produce it."

As I've said before, I've accepted numerous patches from numerous people
in the past. You can confirm this from SVN where commit messages
generally refer to issue numbers on this tracker. Clearly I can't make
promises in advance to accept any future patch, but I've indicated where
I'd set the bar (backward compatibility, doc changes, test changes) for
a patch to be considered.