This is awesome. If you're deploying stuff with Python on Lambda, I highly recommend checking out Chalice (https://github.com/awslabs/chalice) and also an extension to it that I wrote for using Lambdas on SNS/S3/Cloudwatch events or scheduled events - https://github.com/kislyuk/domovoi (which I now need to go update to support this as well).
AWS now has Sam which I hadn't heard of before. It's an extension of cloud formation specifically for deploying serverless code to lambda, building API gateways etc. Their command line tool is pretty slick, I'm wondering if these other third party frameworks are needed anymore.
SAM solves a different set of problems from the frameworks like Chalice. It does not address the app request/response API, deployment package building process and dependency bundling, the test-development cycle, routing and other API Gateway configuration specifics.
Also, Chalice is a first party framework in that it's led by an AWS affiliated developer.
Re: #3 – that's a huge claim to toss around without showing the numbers you used including the full cost to manage your own VMs. Yes, Lambda can get more expensive but staff time is also significant and many tasks don't get enough volume to outweigh saving even a developer hour or two per month.
