non-themed widget styles?

[Chris Rorvick <chrisr trdlnk com>]

I have a GTK application that modifies the foreground and background of 
many different buttons rapidly.  These buttons should not be themed, so 
it seems that the gtk_widget_modify_*() functions incur an unnecessary 
overhead.  Is there a way to remove the theming of a widget?  I've tried 
setting a button's style to a private copy, modifying that copy and then 
calling gtk_widget_set_style.  I've gotten this to work, but I feel like 
I'm fighting with GTK.  :)

Is there a proper way to do this?  Also, is there some decent 
documentation that covers hacking around with GTK widgets like this?

Thanks,

Chris Rorvick