Additional Wrapper within Link Tag

There is not really a graceful way to do this from what I can tell. I did this:

Copy <root>/sites/all/modules/menu_block/menu-block-wrapper.tpl.php to your theme
Copy <root>/sites/all/themes/yourtheme/menu-block-wrapper.tpl.php to <root>/sites/all/themes/yourtheme/menu-block-wrapper-yourmenuname.tpl.php

Then alter your file <root>/sites/all/themes/yourtheme/menu-block-wrapper-yourmenuname.tpl.php to contain:

<?php
// $Id: menu-block-wrapper.tpl.php,v 1.5 2008/12/01 09:56:56 johnalbin Exp $

/**
 * @file menu-block-wrapper.tpl.php
 * Default theme implementation to wrap menu blocks.
 *
 * Available variables:
 * - $content: The unordered list containing the menu.
 * - $classes: A string containing the CSS classes for the DIV tag. Includes:
 *   menu-name-NAME, parent-mlid-MLID, and menu-level-LEVEL.
 * - $classes_array: An array containing each of the CSS classes.
 *
 * The following variables are provided for contextual information.
 * - $settings: An array of the block's settings. Includes menu_name,
 *   parent_mlid, level, follow, depth, expanded, and sort.
 *
 * @see template_preprocess_menu_block_wrapper()
 * @see theme_menu_block_wrapper()
 */
?>
<div class="<?php print $classes; ?>">
  <?php print preg_replace("/<li(.*?)><a(.*?)>([^<]+)<\/a><\/li>/", "<li$1><a$2><span>$3</span></a></li>", $content); ?>
</div>

BTW, this is not critical since it doesn't break normal functionality of the module or cause issues with the module in any way.

BTW, this would be a great addition to the module as well.

Please insert any suffix and/or prefix you would like added to each menu item:
Prefix:
====================
| <span>            |
====================

Suffix:
====================
| </span>            |
====================

[note: this next section would be radio buttons]

Specify where to add the suffix/prefix:
o Around the <li> - o Around the <a> - o Around the text

Is there currently a better way of doing this ?
I'm in need of doing this as well.

From the README.txt:

Theme functions:

Menu block uses Drupal core's menu theme functions. However, it also provides
theme hook suggestions that can be used to override any of the theme functions
called by it.

- theme_menu_link() can be overridden by creating one of:
  - [theme]_menu_link__[menu name]()
  - [theme]_menu_link__menu_block()
  - [theme]_menu_link__menu_block__[menu name]()
  - [theme]_menu_link__menu_block__[block id number]()

For example, if you created a bartik_menu_tree__menu_block() function, it would
override theme_menu_tree() any time it was used by this module, but not when
used by any other module. Similarly, a bartik_menu_link__menu_block__1()
function would override theme_menu_link(), but only for the first menu block in
your system (the menu block with an ID of 1).