When I work with 9, I usually control output at the CSS level.
If you work with the Inspector, notice that you can point to any line of the output and it will show you the relevant CSS files and lines that were used, and you can modify that value. Make sure check disable cache in the inspector and refresh after upload.
Well looks like I'm not going to get an answer; I suppose we can just close this. I decided to do away with bbcodes in my script and go with my own html_buttons script instead.