> Does the last patch obsolete the first two?  If so please delete the 
> obsolete ones.

Yes and no -- it depends on what the core Python developers want and are comfortable with:
  * unicode_escape_single_quotes.patch:  Only escapes single quotes, simple patch.
  * unicode_escape_single_and_double_quotes:  Superset of the above (also escapes double quotes), but probably unnecessary.  Still a relatively simple patch.
  * unicode_escape_reorg.patch:  Superset of unicode_escape_single_quotes.patch that also fixes raw_unicode_escape and other small issues.  It's a bigger patch with a greater potential for backwards-compatibility issues.  (Pickle is an example:  It implemented its own workaround to address raw_unicode_escape's broken escaping, so fixing raw_unicode_escape ended up breaking pickle.  The reorg patch removes pickle's workaround, but there will probably be similar workarounds in other existing code.)

My preference is to have unicode_escape_reorg.patch committed, but I'm not sure how conservative the core developers are.  The release of Python 2.7 is approaching, and they may not want to take on the risk right now.  If that's the case, I'd be happy with applying unicode_escape_single_quotes.patch for now and moving unicode_escape_reorg.patch to a new issue report.

> I imagine there are might be small doc updates required, as well.

Certainly Misc/NEWS will need to be patched.  I'm unfamiliar with what else the devs might want for documentation, so I'd love to get some additional guidance.  I would also appreciate additional feedback on the technical merits of the reorg patch before investing too much time on updating documentation.

> I haven't looked at the patch itself, but concerning your test 
> patch:  your try/except style is unnecessary, I think.  Better to 
> just let the syntax error bubble up on its own.

OK, I'll make that change.  I added the try/except as an attempt to convert a known ERROR to a FAIL in case that was important for some reason.

Thanks for the feedback!