yeah -- ugly, but will  one more file make a difference? now that I think about it -- IIUC the goals here, we want to separate packaging from building -- I'd argue that setuup.cfg is about building -- we really should keep the package configuration  separate. Some day, some how, we hoping to have a new (or multiple build systems) they won't use setup.cfg to configure the build. So we probably shouldn't marry ourselves to setup.cfg for package configuration.

The other issue is social -- if we stick with setup.cfg, we are implying that this is all about tweaking distutils/setuptools, not doing something different -- seemingly keeping the mingling of building and packaging forevermore....

But this isn't that big a deal -- enough bike-shedding, time to make a declaration.

-CHB