So I decided to just change the System Setting signupemail_message. It might be different if your site is liable to be sending email to new Manger users as well.
And it turns out inserting Extended Fields attributes is a cinch, even if you've got container attributes:
I'm actually building a CSV user import package with a lot of options. It will be a snippet that can be put on an unpublished page with a link to it in the Manager menu. It will have a form to upload a file, specifying the fields and delimiters. On submission, the snippet will process the file, using PHP's SplFileObject. The POST values will be used to configure the setCsvControl object and used in a loop on the resulting array to create the variables to be used in the new user creation.
I suppose eventually I'll make it into a CMP, but I'm not sure that it's worth the effort.
[ed. note: sottwell last edited this post 9 years, 3 months ago.]