state-string.py

try:
    state = "initializing"
    read_configs()
    state = "downloading"
    files = get_files()
    state = "importing"
    import_files(files)
    state = "complete"

exception:

    if (state == "importing"):
        print("WARNING: The script quit before it finished importing. You may have incomplete files stored on the server")
    else:
        print("Script quit unexpectedly. Please notify the developer");

I've never seen sys.excepthook used. Generally I'll stick all the code in a top-level function, then wrap the call to that function in try/except:

def main():
    args = parse_args()
    try:
        run(args)
    except MyException:
        print "oh no"

And sometimes I'll have something like:

def run(args):
    try:
        return _run(args)
    except MyException:
        return "oh no there was an error"

So that I don't need to have an entire function indented inside a try block.