Personally I can't use python at all, but there are plenty of helpful people out there and I'm sure that it wouldn't be too hard to get someone to help you set up a mod for a game
It is better if you can do it yourself though, of course.
There's a lot of discussion ongoing about CBM 1.7 right now. Basically it made a lot of big changes and people are concerned that overall balance may have taken a hit for the worse due to it. And they've been talking about revisions on IRC, so I would say a CBM 1.8 is reasonably likely to appear within the next few months.
I give myself a lot of house rules, too when playing against the AI. And even when I do MP games, come to think of it. Maybe not the best idea, but it makes things more fun for me.