Is there a way the process could be spawned at 'below normal' priority? That way she'd be pre-empted by most everything.

It already is pre-empted by everything. As soon as something else does anything important, it gets all the necessary CPU cycles.

There's a difference between something being at the top of the task list for CPU usage and something actually hogging the processor. It's a percentage, so someone's gotta be on the top of the list. If the only thing you're playing with is face.exe, then the thing at the top of the list is gonna be either face.exe or System Idle Process. You don't write Microsoft and complain that the System Idle Process is hogging the CPU, do you?

Unless you're saying that all your other apps run slow whenever face is painting its screen updates. I don't get that on my system, all other apps remain as quick and responsive as they always have.