Yep, I'm into Exif headers and photography but I prefer to leave camera-generated file names alone (there being some 70,000 of them here).
Interestingly, Transnomino (which is free) can also pop some Exif metadata into a file name, although ABetterFinderRename can pop more of them in.
I have to say regex is not pain and anguish for me. It's just pattern recognition, which I find fun, although I agree it does seem to plague the innocent.
Thanks again for the suggestion.