`next(re.finditer(...), None)` is a weird way of writing `re.search(...)`.
`next(re.finditer(...), defaults)` is the same as `re.search(...) or
defaults`.
Not so fast. re.search() returns a Match object, while re.finditer() and re.findall() return strings. For people who are just interested in strings, the Match object is just a distraction. I think I am +1 on adding re.findfirst() as proposed by the OP.