I tried doing some research with "dpkg -L" to see exactly what is being installed for both this new alien deb file as well as my newly installed kdeartwork-theme-window. It seems the *.so and *.la files go inside /usr/lib/kde3/ and their configuration files reside in /usr/share/apps/kwin. I see that my new alien file (call it bluecurve) is inside both places but it's still not recongized. I also realized that the newly installed window themes from kdeartwork-theme-window all have the prefix kwin3 as where the bluecurve does not (kwin_bluecurve*). So I tried changing the prefix to read kwin3_bluecurve* and now it's being recongnized inside control center -> appearance & themes -> window decorations. The only problem is, when I try to use it, it uses the keramik window theme.
So I'm wondering two things; is it possible for me to use the bluecurve theme in 3.2 and is the keramik window theme the default if something isn't right with kwin in 3.2.
bp