That's not been an issue for several years (since Django 1.5(?) introduced custom user models). Drop in a custom admin form and you're done.

That is not true with current (1.9).

Drop in a custom user model and

a) Better be a brand new project at all

b) You need to muck with the user manager also

c) How do you fix up the admin module? I have yet to see a fully fixed up admin module for the custom user.

I am not a Django pro so happy to be proved wrong. But take a default app, and record all steps to make the user model work (including password reset, login, logout, admin page). If that doesn't feel crufty to you I am not sure what cruft is.

Fair enough. Here's some code I wrote for a side project a couple of years ago - it was a side project, not meant for real world production, and it's a couple Django versions behind, so no guarantees as to quality, but should give you an idea:

https://github.com/danjac/ownblock/blob/master/ownblock/ownb...

Not my experience either. And in 2016, email-as-username should be default and work flawlessly out of the box.