Evan,

Good call on adding support for static buffers as well, this will make
this function more versatile.

I just pushed a few further tweaks (I explained the reasoning behind
each change in commit log messages) and reverted the name change as
Mukund makes a good point IMHO.  As most of these latest modifications
are basically bikeshedding, feel free to revert them to any extent you
deem appropriate if you have strong feelings about any of them.  Once
you are happy with the end result, please let me know and I will merge
it.

Thanks!