About button customizations - I think you can achieve this now. You just need a URL to the button. It's like this:
URLRoot()&"/edit.aspx?b=12345&id="&RecordId()
Where the value of b is the ID of the button. You can get it from the URL of the setup page for the custom button, it's the value of custbtn=[ButtonId]. If you open this URL you will run that button on the record you opened it from. If it takes input it will give you the button form. If it just runs an action it will run the action.
If you make it a Table View button and show it on no views, then it's accessible to everyone but not visible anywhere in the normal interface. So you can provide just your customized interface to it.
Be sure to put the back information at the end, so it lands you back where you clicked it from:
URLRoot()&"/edit.aspx?b=12345&id="&RecordId()&"&back="&BackURL()
== Interface Possibilities ==
If you put it in a Formula URL column, you can make it show as a button with whatever text you want. It will look like a standard system button.
If you put it in a Formula XHTML column, you can control color and size and anything else you want:
<a href="<% [Button URL - Delivered] %>">
<button type="button" style="background-color:green;height:50px;width:100px;">
Delivered
</button>
</a>
Or if you put an image you want to use in the application resources, you can use a Formula XHTML column to make an image that acts as a button:
<a href="<% [Button URL - Delay] %>">
<img src="res.aspx/Warning-icon.png" />
</a>
You can put all of these on the form. And you can use form behavior to only show the buttons that should be available based on current state of the record. You can also put them in views.
If you put the whole set in a single Formula XHTML column, then you can have a single column in views that shows just the available actions for each record:
<a href="<% [Button URL - Extend] %>" class="ui-button"
style="<% If([Button Extend Available?],"","display:none;") %>">
Extend Expected Delivery
</a>
<a href="<% [Button URL - Delivered] %>"
style="<% If([Button Extend Available?],"","display:none;") %>">
<button type="button" style="background-color:green;height:50px;width:100px;">
Delivered
</button>
</a>
<a href="<% [Button URL - Delay] %>"
style="<% If([Button Delay Available?],"","display:none;") %>">
<img src="res.aspx/Warning-icon.png" />
</a>
It works really well. I do this to put document buttons in views.
Here it is with separate columns:
http://postimg.org/image/uh3hknud3/And all in a single column:
http://postimg.org/image/fjy4u2j2l/