Fix issue #1463 by restoring behavior of --timeout parameter

[davidcostanzo]

Helpful things

Fixes

Fixes #1463

Purpose

The upgrade to python3 broke the processing of the --timeout parameter due to a type mismatch (a string was compared to an integer). The fix is to always treat the --timeout parameter as a string, deferring to the test runner to parse it and report errors.

This also fixes a typo in the name of a variable "webclient_timeout" (it was named "weblcient_timeout").

It also adds some new regression tests for the play auto-test command.