I actually got this working. I had a little help from a friend of mine who developed a very extensive onboard keyboard for tablet computers.
So now I have this verion of MAME that runs on touch screens. It's pretty nifty too. I'd like to share it with the community but I have no idea where to start.
Part of my modification also included making it work as a child window in a WPF application. Is modifying the source MAME as I have considered taboo? I think this is a really cool variation and I'd like to contribute it if possible.