vortxGE 2.0 Material Animation

Now I have material animation working, but as you may know there is the issue of shadow casting when animating the Alpha Chanel.. I've opted for a User setting that lets them turn ON/OFF Depth buffer writes.. I'm wondering if that is the best option, I just cant think of any simple way to adjust shadows on an object by object basis... For instance you may want shadows cast from a Quad with alpha map on it but a glowing effect that flashes just wont work.

Any inspired options anyone ?