It's probably unnecessary to mention, but I just wanted to confirm that version 9-10 did in fact clear up the problems I was having with 9-9. I also was going to put in a request to see if it was possible to optify the new pieces, but it looks like that topic's already been covered and will soon be moot.
I'd say the majority of my n900 usage involves an X term prompt, so honestly I don't know why I even care about playing around with the themes so much, but it's actually very entertaining to me to fiddle with the settings on a daily basis, and your work is a big part of that.