Mike,
As of Joomla 1.7 there is a parameter in the
Menu Manager: Edit Menu Item under
Link Type Options parameters called
Link CSS StyleHere is an article explaining what it SHOULD do.
http://writenowdesign.com/joomla-user-guide/132-joomla-16-joomla-17-include-article-title-in-the-read-more-linkI am having the same problem in the Construction template getting this feature to apply a custom CSS class to a particular menu item. in both the main menu (as defined in the template manager) and the S5 Accordion Menu.