Aye, didn't see youre repy :). I see what youre are aiming. Handeling the 'default' stuff in python makes it much flexiable for non-trival default values.
>From the current SQLObject docs: "default: The default value for this column. Used when creating a new row. If you give a callable object or function, the function will be called, and the return value will be used. So you can give DateTime.now to make the default value be the current time. Or you can use SQLBuilder.func.NOW() to have the database use the NOW() function internally. If you don't give a default there will be an exception if this column isn't specified in the call to new."

