pbbuttonsd does not recieve events from mice that use the synaptics driver because it contains code to intecept these events. The attached patch allows the events to "leak" through, letting pbbuttonsd work. I'm unsure if there are any side effects to this, or if there's a reason why it was done in the first place, but I'll look into it.
Created attachment 91160 [details, diff] Event workaround
Alright, so best I can see, the "grabbing" is done to prevent other readers from switching the mode underneath the synaptics driver. I think we should probably look for a different way to work around this. Sorry for the noise.
