ok, so here is my plan for the next release, based on the enormously helpful feedback and my own experiments.
this will be the first one that will work out of the box {maybe just for inception-users and open-moders, but ill do my best to make it work for anybody that can use a terminal and follow instructions in it once}.

goals:
1) make installation easy, with an incept-able or just straight up installable deb. apply for ovi store, etc.

2) move the button config to a file {e.g.: /home/user/.config/button-monitor/keys.conf}. it will be configurable live at runtime.

3) make the buttons you can configure reasonable. there will be 5 events per button.
{for now, just volume up, and volume down; power down is right out, until i work out how to both disable the default action, and ensure that you can still shut down the phone and lock it safely. also out are multi-button combinations, because i think they are too hard to do usefully, and complicate the detection of patterns; in my tests, i wound up doing things i didnt mean most of the time.}

(a) press-and-hold-start
(b) press-and-hold-release
(c) click
(d) double-click
(e) treble-click

for example:
-press-hold-start VOL+ might focus the camera, and press-and-hold-release VOL+ take the picture
-press-hold-start VOL- might turn on the flash, and press-and-hold-release VOL- turn it back off
-click VOL+ would play/pause music, double-click VOL+ would next song, and treble-click VOL+ would prev song

4) add some actions
(a) flash on, with configurable auto-shutoff {ready}
(b) flash off {ready}
(c) snap picture inside the camera program {ready}
(d) focus camera inside the camera program {ready}
(e) snap picture without camera program {possible, but nowhere near ready, not essential for next release}
(f) volume control, not ****ing profile {havent explored it yet, i think this is critical and should be simple}
(h) play/pause music {i use magic perl scripts + mplayer, so not done yet for anybody but me}
(i) skip song {ditto}
(j) prev song {ditto}

5) add some conditions. you can specify a list of them.
(a) lock screen is on/off {ready}
(b) low power screen is on/off {ready}
(c) phone is/is not in-pocket screen-off {might be impossible; PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU KNOW HOW TO DO THIS there are no mce dbus messages for it, anyway, and the brightness device doesnt stop reading 0 in lowpowerscreen}
(d) camera program has focus {ready}
(e) generic program is on top {ready, but you need to know the window name; camera is camera-ui, firefox is fennec, etc}

ill put the features in a wiki or list or something, and post when theyre done

features im adding:
https://teleshoes.tadalist.com/lists/2175153/public

this is to show that progress is just slow, not dead; im on my way to making something useful.

complain here and ill see it. propose any actions or conditions you may think of here, and ill add them if they make sense.

Great!
From the todo list:
action: volumeUp {not profile}
action: volumeDown {not profile}

Please put this one the highest priority on the list..
You will make A LOT of users happy with this very functional option!

unfortunately, it wont be terribly easy; i need to SELECTIVELY disable the default actions, and figure out under what circumstances to allow them.

however, i dreamt up a compromise; sync the profile to the volume after each press.
SILENT => 0%
BEEP => 0%
RINGING_1 => 25%
RINGING_2 => 50%
RINGING_3 => 75%
RINGING_4 => 100%

lemme know if you think this makes sense as a compromise if actually selectively disabling default actions {like zoom in the browser, zoom in the camera, etc} is hard or even impossible.

Hmmm... You could try that as a workaround for now.
I only want a vibrate profile though. I think I might have a solution for that:
I will make a special ringtone that is silent, but it will vibrate longer by default (because if you set the ringtone on "(no sound)" it will only vibrate very short).

About zooming on browser: Pinch to zoom
About camera zooming: on the camera app, there is a slider at the top, you can slide that to zoom in or to zoom out.

so the Volume button is only meant for the Volume! (and to boot NITDroid )

i am toootally inclined to agree; everywhere its used in default apps is stupid and redundant. the volume buttons CAN have real uses though, in other apps, and those apps will probably not expose a way to trigger them. see fbreader's volume-to-turn-page, and any app that decides to make something you can ONLY do with volume keys,

until i find a way to not eat the events under certain circumstances, i cant really make this feature work.

You can at least make some "option" to enable "volume only" for users like me

0.3 should actually work, full of bugs, but otherwise pretty much exactly as advertised, if youre terminal savvy enough to get it working. {if you have any trouble installing it, ill try to help; ask here or on irc}

key features are missing, like music-control and HtheB-style-volume-control, and its a ***** to install and run because it needs super-privileges.

also, i just got it working so its not especially well-tested. it seems to use no power at all when idle, which is my #1 priority in terms of regression testing. if you get it working, and notice power usage increases, PLEASE TELL ME.

0.4 => music suite actions

action=musicPlayPause,volumeUp,singleClick,screenL ocked
action=musicNext,volumeDown,singleClick,screenLock ed
action=musicPrev,volumeDown,doubleClick,screenLock ed

I CANT FIGURE OUT HOW TO CHANGE THE GODDAM SYSTEM VOLUME.

tried with built-in clis:
pulseaudio-utils, alsamixer, amixer

tried with c libraries and all audio APIs i found in the developer api:
qmediaplayer, phonon.audiooutput.

this should SO not be difficult. anybody know how to do this? {programmatically adjust the system volume, such that the slider in the status bar also moves with it}