Just to follow up, I was looking at something else in Brian's CR book. I ran across a part where he is talking about using CSS to deal with the parameter value box. If I understand what I read correctly, the parameter dialog box is rendered in HTML (not just when its a web app). Again, if I have understood what he wrote correctly, then you should be able to use CSS against that HTML code to deal with formatting.
Thought I would pass this along, since it might be worth another look. Once again I must say I have never tried doing this.
Regards,
John W.