Just a quick thought... how about modifying the code so that channel tabs don't get highlighted unless something of note actually happens in a channel, like a MSG or an ACTION... the most frequent cause of tab highlighting is just JOINs and PARTs, rather uninteresting.

Options - Display
Change the event color to default color of switchbar buttons text...

Tried that, but it would seem that 'Message' highlight colour controls the highlighting for private /msgs in a query window, and 'Event' colour controls pretty much everything else. If you change the 'query' highlight colour, it will change the highlight colour for *everything* that goes to a channel, be it text, actions or actual events (JOINs, etc).

Um, none of this happens here. I have blue for "Event" and red for "Message". Whenever mirc receives a message/notice either a channel or a private one, the button goes red. In any other event (like join, part, quit etc) it goes blue.

Are you running a script that changes the display of messages/events? If yes, chances are that this script isn't using the proper /echo switches to simulate the default behaviour.

Aha! You're correct, it was a faulty script. Thanks.

Yep... be sure to use the -m flag in /echo when you goto echo spoken text.