To replace a large framework you will probably need a framework. Take a look at http://www.djangoproject.com or http://www.turbogears.org. They both use some of the tools you mention but operate on a higher level.
I find Python fairly easy to maintain. Unfortunatly, I do not find it easy to take a bunch of Java code and move it to Python. But once it is there, Python is a good choice for web apps. Java is slow and has a big footprint. Python is reasonably nimble and good design choices pay off. Plus, you must write many more lines of Java to do what you can in Python. I do not know the code you are not working with, but a lot of large Java apps can be poorly written. I guess you could also look at http://www.jython.org/ and see if you can somehow make the transition but not all at once. Good luck, <http://brianray.chipy.org> -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
