*"It's kind of hard to go around asking the experts how to do things when you never know whether or not the question might offend them."

*Generally the consensus is that it's better to try and fail, than than never to ahve tried at all.  Any pro would know this, and respond to your question likewise.  Whether he believes you're doing this for free, or not, his answer should always be...polite.

"a script with 3D display of the meshes, allowing some user specification of certain things, and visualization"*

Wow.  Makes me think of how similar what you're doing is to the Fae Room.  Where the Face Room goes from any odd image to a standard target, we have the added advantage of knowing the Subject figures geometry; in other words I think this would be easier, really.

"Any thoughts on whether this is a good idea or a bad one?"

*I still say let that be the least of your worries!  There are more than enough 3rd party applications to warrant this need, and most of them do'nt do half of what your goal is. 

"It all kind of makes me wish I had something other than Python to work with...."

...In fact, I severely doubt anyone would criticize any steps you'd need to take in order to make the end a mean, specifically where this would be the only method in place at it's inception!