Alternative DROP-DOWN MENU styling

Having got used to node-red, which has a variety of drop-down ‘styles’ I was flumaxed that HA seems to have only one, with little scope for adapting it. It works OK where you have loads of horizontal space, but is awfully limited otherwise, e.g. use in a horizontal-stack (see pics).
standard view when used in entities-card

I’m TRULY hoping i’ve missed something and look-forward to a more-experienced HA practitioner putting me right. But please, if you think there’s a simpler way, try yourself 1st before posting - being a fairly experienced web-designer, with CSS I thought it was gonna be simple.

After many-hours (many!), Iv’e been able to card-mod the existing ‘style’ to ALMOST work for me - please see pics - but it’s a bodge and still not perfect (see the black lines).

The main issues are that I can’t easily get rid of (or tweak): 1. the ICON-space 2. the ‘down-arrow’ space 3. the black-line. I ended up using -ve margins and relying on other buttons hide stuff to solve 1 and 2, 3 not sorted,

In striving to sort this I’ve searched hundreds of posts, many are looking for the same, some who had tried, failed and given up.

Advice appreciated - thanks!
1/4 screen-width
1/8 screen-width