in my view media handling of app-engine-patch has got simple and
convincing targets:

1.
Working locally the tricky app-engine-patch url is mapped to the
folders called 'media'. You only have to put your media (jpg, png, css
etc) there.

Working locally don't care for _generated_media. You don't need them
(even if the request url contains their folder names, locally they are
remapped to the media folders mentioned.)

2.
Working on the web css and js media are compressed, combinded and all
media placed into the _generated_media folders, to stay within Googles
file limits. These folders are rewritten automatically each time you
upload your code with manage.py update.

When uploading you may have to leave the _generated_media folder that
app-engine-patch can delete and rewrite it. Otherwise you may end
without content in that folder.

You can view this process in action when you play around with my
sample
http://benchstat.appspot.com/fileHost/09/04/08/staticDemo.zip
which looks like this sreenshot
http://benchstat.appspot.com/fileHost/09/04/08/StaticDemo.jpg

Don't try to invent your own request urls, use the app-engine-patch
form of request urls (see example), only they work both on the web and
locally.

If you put your media into the prepared folders called 'media', use
the right form of request url and CombinedMedia (see example) than the
whole magic should work automatically.