i THINK so but it might not be better than the way you're doing it now...it sorta would require manually doing it anyway
but there might be a better work around. from what i can tell, i THINK it would only work with %s not specific prices. so if you're marking down by % cool, if you're setting a specific price, i dont think so...but what do i know?
this is how i'd do it with special offers -
create a category i.e. "10% off Category"
in special offers you'd set it to mark down specific product/products within a specified category and sub categories based on a % (in this case "10% Off Category" and discount at 10%).
you'd then have to go to each product that you want to mark 10% off and include it in the new category you created, "10% Off Category," without changing the price.
so in effect, instead of changing the price and adding the product to the category like you've been doing...
you're creating a static special offer, creating a category and then adding/removing products from the category as needed.