i'm answering the arhitectural part of your question.
pylons is around MVC (model view controller) approach. u have squezeed
model into the controller which isnt _bad as such but not appropriate
for any complexier/larger modelling. controllers are about
translating between model and view,
I'm curious why a special twisted server is needed to calculate things
that should live very naturally within the relational database, i.e.
votes, user stats, etc. If calculating these things via SQL is
time consuming, those stats can be calculated on a periodic basis
(either upon change in