Here's what i did to create my button. Perhaps you can find the fault in my
procedure. I laid out text boxes, one for each of my buttons, on a black
background. Then, i created a red vector rectangle for each of my buttons to
go behind the text for my down state. I'm used to creating my button states in
PS, so this was how i was proceding in FW. Then, i read documentation on
creating buttons and nav bars in FW. It took me a while to understand the
process, but what i came away with is that i create the button graphic in the
button editor and then close the button editor and adjust instance-specific
attributes (like button text) from the property inspector (not symbol
properties dialog box). So, i created a row of blank button clones that i need
to put text on so people know what they refer to (home, contact, etc.). I
click on a button and the text field in the property inspector remains
uneditable.

Since i still have my layers of text boxes with my button lables, when i
export to HTML, my buttons come out with the correct labels on them, but
apparently FW should be able to receive button text as part of the button
object itself. I just can't access that functionality over here and have no
idea why.