Okay, so I guess the interesting part for what I'm thinking about is this property styleName. It doesn't satisfy the desire to change a whole bxml file without additional markup, but at least it's cleaner looking than what I thought in my earlier speculation was needed. It also suggests to me that I might be thinking about it the wrong way, and that some kind of globally-managed styles might actually be more desirable. Sort of like how css files are preferable to lots of markup in html.
Thanks for your help.
