I think bitpop's suggestion of taking a look at armory is a good one. It's also written in python and solved most of these problems already. An ncurses interface to some of armory's functions (while relying only on bitcoind) would be an awesome combination!
Feature wise, what I would love is to see a ncurses interface to coincontrol: constructing transactions by selecting UTXOs from the list of available ones and computing fees following different schemes (free, pre 0.8.2, current, manual).
It makes me very happy that people have found my work useful so far. Finding some solution to fund the roof over my head whilst also pursuing this sort of project remains the challenge we all struggle with.
Indeed.

I can only say: keep up the good work! Hope you'll find some income in the space that allows you to continue this work. If this ever happens to myself, I would happily donate as well...
I agree on the armory points.
Also thanks for the tool. Very nice.