I do something similar. What I really like about this approach is that I can have a path where configuration files are kept. There is no need to stop at the first one. Instead you pick them up in turn, later ones override the first.

This is nice because it allows you to have later files override only what they need to. For an example of how to use this consider the case where your path goes through a CVS directory and winds up out of CVS. Then developers can try changing a few defaults here and there without changing files in CVS and running the risk of checking in something that was meant to be part of a private test...