Is there a way to output HTML besides using "msg", as msg always appends a newline/br on the end? It gets to be a pain for style changes. I could use JS to change the style and that might be a better way to go. But I was curious.

You could take a look at OutputTextRaw() code in CoreOutput.aslx but it is not a public API so it wouldn't be wise to call it. Not to mention that it also outputs span and br.
However, it also uses JS for text output if I am not mistaken so you seem to be on the right track with your idea.

Thanks for the pointer. I'll check it out.