So I got coppermine installed with no problems at all, easy as.
So I had to chmod 777 a few directories during install.
My questions is -
So does all this just stay world writtable forever in order for coppermine to work? should i go back and chmod those directories to 755 or something?
That would depend on how your server is set up. 755 is only appropriate in configurations where the server runs as you. It is safe to experiment with the setting - if Coppermine breaks you can just reverse whatever change you made. Once installed, Coppermine only needs write access to the albums directory and all its subdirectories.
See also: http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=2987.0