was it charles waldman who complained about this?
i see what's going on, in that it's trying to highlight lines showing program
execution but not highlight error messages, entering/leaving messages, and the
like.  the latter two messages have colons in them, and program execution lines
have -'s in them because of options beginning with -.  So you could at least
eliminate some problems by looking only for places with a - beginning a word
[i.e. preceded by spaces].
--
Ben
In order to save my hands, I am cutting back on my mail.  I also write
as succinctly as possible -- please don't be offended.  If you send me
mail, you _will_ get a response, but please be patient, especially for
XEmacs-related mail.  If you need an immediate response and it is not
apparent in your message, please say so.  Thanks for your understanding.
See also 
http://www.666.com/ben/chronic-pain/