I found this little program while searching for solutions to my issues. It does a few things if you drop it in to your START folder (be sure to have security set so as that the program will be allowed to run without interruption)...
(1) It changes the mouse cursor to transparent.
(2) It closes whatever window may be open on the desktop.
(3) It creates a borderless black window that.
MAME and Attract-Mode are allowed to be seen on top of the black window...
Basically it eliminated the "white screen" popping up issue I had... it eliminates any/all "mouse cursor" visibility issues when selecting games, etc...
It works great!
The only issue I have left is the odd one that cropped up when I moved to Super Resolutions... rather than dropping to a BLACK SCREEN (or a loading screen or any screen) when a game is selected... it simply freezes the screen (animation s stop, etc) for 2-3 seconds then loads up the ROM. I'd love to change this behavior to at least drop to a BLACK screen... though a "loading" screen would work too.
There is a plugin for attractmode that allows a "fade to game" option... it worked great with regular resolutions... it no longer works with Super resolutions... I only get the behavior described earlier.
EDIT: Here is the download page for ATTRACTTRUEBLACK below... which includes more specifics, etc:
http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=1569.msg11093#msg11093