Agree about the globals - for something that's touted as quick and easy for beginners, I spent an inordinate time in the docs due to all the automagic features. Customizing something like a form outside the automagic prescription is also a non-intuitive pain.

That said, there are many things I do like about it. Mainly that it's out of the box for App Engine, unlike Django, and its web-based IDE built in.