mb-applet-launcher and gtk app kill problem

hi --

i'm hoping this is a common problem, with an easy fix.

one of the apps i start and stop using mb-applet-launcher is
the mapping program called RoadMap.

the mbdock.session line looks like:
    mb-applet-launcher -k /usr/share/pixmaps/usa.xpm roadmap

this works fine, most of the time.  the app comes and goes on
demand.

however, if the app has a modal dialog up, the launcher's kill operation
has no effect.  the result is that i can easily get multiple copies
of the app running at once.

roadmap will build as either a gtk or a gtk2 app, and the behavior
is the same in either mode.

has anyone else seen this?  know of a workaround?

i confess i was surprised to discover how the launcher works.  i
had naively assumed that it did a fork/exec to launch, and a
kill(2) to terminate.  (and i spent some time debugging the
roadmap signal handling before i realized that it wan't being
used.   since the app has to handle SIGTERM correctly anyway
(for system shutdown purposes), i'd have been perfectly happy
with a signal-based termination.