Hey guys,

There's a great addon that I discovered here:
http://www.pptools.com/index.html

Specifically the SHAPESTYLES and STARTERSET PLUS downloads. He has created some useful stuff! One of them being a button that tells you everything about a selected object. (it's the pig icon on the StarterSet Plus download)

[EDIT] -- I paid for the full verison, so I'm not sure if the free version lets you use all of the features, but it's very cheap and I think it's worth it.