Andy you seem very interested in this small usability issue but you generated enough comment to clearly state your opinion by now so it would be time to stop there and let people do work next, stating the same things again and again will only spam people by email and annoy them
that said I'm not convinced that having lot of padding and empty space on each side of the label in locales where the wording is very different for previous and next would be better looking that having buttons fitting the label
Andy you seem very interested in this small usability issue but you generated enough comment to clearly state your opinion by now so it would be time to stop there and let people do work next, stating the same things again and again will only spam people by email and annoy them
that said I'm not convinced that having lot of padding and empty space on each side of the label in locales where the wording is very different for previous and next would be better looking that having buttons fitting the label