Buzz, because of the button press issues you describe all my Pronto applications handle the buttons (soft and hard) in the same manner.

They make a Queue entry in a FIFO stack. I can then control the execution of the associated command (IR, TCPIP, RS232, etc.) based upon system state.

All my applications run a page loop (the same loop for every page with the loop code at the activity level). The page loop looks at the user queue only when approriate, but the user never looses a keyin and if things get too busy I can put up a wait/busy message util I bring the queue down to a manageble size..