Considering that a Drupal module download should contain the basic components necessary,
considering that the Read Me instructions does not mention the absence of buttons,
AND considering that I was never able to get the buttons to become visible,
this is a bug.

i) The button image was not included in the Drupal download.

ii) The buttons were never visible. I could see the bar and they worked as such (text was edited) if I clicked, but they would not appear in the bar above the text-areas.

Version : Drupal 5.23
Downloaded the Whizzywig 5.x-1.2

TRIED
* placed in /sites/all/modules as per instructions
* also tried putting everything in /libraries
* in /buttons I put the downloaded png, then renamed it icons.png, then inserted the D.6 images. Everything.