🚀 go-pugleaf

I'm interested in using Epoch to display a colored map as a background 
to some text. I've been doing this by dividing each area on the map into lots
of horizontal segments, and then making a button of the proper color for each
of these segments, to get a rough, character-sized pixel map, something like:

   *******XXXXXXX
  **********XXXXXXX
  **Myland****XXXXXXXXXXX
  ***********XXXyourlandXXXX
  *********XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

where the *s and Xs represent different attributes (I'm using 3.2 as 
as the release of 4.0 was just a few days ago.) and the Myland and 
yourland represent example text.

   The map uses some few hundred of these segments, and takes fifteen
to twenty seconds to initially have the buttons created and drawn. The
map actually looks surprisingly good. 
     However, two difficulties have arisen:
   1. (the one you're expecting) After creating the map, whenever the
map screen
is current, Epoch is incredibly slow. I was warned this was a side effect of
lots of buttons.
   2. Typing into the buffer stretches and alters the segments, horribly
distorting the map. I ideally imagine the map as "the coloration of the
paper" the text is on, so that changing the buffer contents textwise won't
change the begin and end points in terms of character numbers (i.e., positions)
of the segments.

   Is there any way to acheive this effect with Epoch? Or at least any way to
speed up lots of buttons? The manual says that lots of buttons are slow because
all of the begin-points and end-points have to be checked for alteration after
every possible change to the buffer, but this is precisely the check I don't
need (and in fact don't want).  Does 4.0 offer any help on this issue?
Would anyone else be interested in an arbitrary color-patterned background
to a text screen?
      Thanks for any help,
             Glen Whitney