Tysmom - they make white food coloring if you want to use butter, but also have a white white cake.
I've added salt to my water before adding it to the batch and it takes the sweetness down a lot but doesnt taste salty.. some add a pinch of salt but i like it to desolve in the water first.. then at the end i add a splash of milk to really whip it up..
That's exactly what I do, add the salt to my liquid first. I'll use milk/cream for all but one or two tbsp. and use slightly warm water for the remainder. I dissolve my salt in that. I made the mistake of trying to add salt straight to the buttercream and could taste the granules.
This has tremendously cut down on the sweetness for me. You also do not have to refrigerate BC if you used milk instead of water. Now this is if you're using just tbsp. of milk. The sugar and salt sort of preserve it, so I've heard. Wilton also says you can leave it out on the counter unrefrigerated for a few days. I've never had any problems.
I also use an almond/butter/creme bouquet mix if I'm not using some other flavoring combo. (depending on the cake)
I'm not an icing fan either, I never eat it unless it's cream cheese icing or ganache. 
I used to use Creme Bouquet until a lady I took a wedding cake class from said that you could make your own with equal parts of lemon and orange extract. That's what I do now, and it tastes great and I like that it doesn't have any articial flavors. People tell me they love it. Here's my recipe:
1 cup butter
1 cup crisco
2 lbs powdered sugar
dash salt
1 tsp clear vanilla
1 tsp butter flavor
1/8 tsp lemon extract
1/8 tsp orange extract
5 tbsp milk
Thanks for sharing the recipe for the creme bouquet!! I'll have to give that a try.
And, to answer the questions about where I bought mine -- like someone else said, I found it at my Decorator's Grocery store. I first heard about it here on CC, so of course I had to get some! I love using it!
I added 2 tbsp of raspberry flavoring to the wilton BC recipe instead of the vanilla and got rave reviews...people said it tasted like the filling in "Flaky" pastries. (And I use salted butter)
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