Callout, footnotes, & annotations.

I have a number or ascii docs where I have used (and abused) the
following presentation format:

[

  \033[ 35 ; 1 m

  ^     ^  ^ ^ ^
  |     |  | | |
  |     |  | | .----------- signal end of escape sequence
  |     |  | |
  |     |  | .------------- command #2 - set bold attribute
  |     |  |
  |     |  .--------------- command separator
  |     |
  |     .------------------ command #1 - set foreground color to magenta
  |
  .------------------------ start escape sequence

]

I have tried two things:

1) Rendering them asis as part of a <programlisting> </programlisting>
   element.

2) Callout lists.

I am not too happy with either of them.  (1) doesn't look to good in the
middle of an html page (or a pdf/printout) and as to (2) it can get a
little messy when you have a large number of callouts on a single line.

Is there anything else in DocBook that might address this?

Thanks,
cga