Handling lots of bones?

In Jeremy’s rigging reel - http://vimeo.com/20729631
there is a statement saying “using an insane amount of bones is OK”…

I’m just wondering, how do you accomplish this without going insane? Considering things like naming bones in a good way, adding constraints, and keeping them “in sync” with each other, and so on.

I’m thinking that you would do this easiest by writing a script that generates parts of the rig automatically.

This is kind of an open question… Could someone with experience (Jeremy perhaps?) share some thoughts? Perhaps someone has some example files/scripts to share?