No I didnt alter any of the button templates or rectangle_top.
I wanted to change to layout of the password_recovery.tpl file:
(1) I dont want to stick to the dialog.tpl layout, so i commented that out and then created a custom table design that I wanted to use in its place. (2) then i took the code from the cells in the original password_recover.tpl file and placed them into my table cells.
From their i tried to ented an email but got a javascript error when i hit the GO button.
Does this help you understand what i did. appreciate your help.
http://www.michaelmoskva.com/xcart/help.php?section=Password_Recovery