Modify Widgets/Plugins via HOOKS

i installed a lovely plugin/widget on a WORDPRESS site and i want to modify the output to my liking (WITHOUT EDITING THE PLUGIN/WIDGET CODE). i have played around with HOOKS and FILTERS but no success as of yet. i was hoping someone could shed some light or point me in the right direction…

here is an idea of the widget INIT function… the function i want to over ride lives inside…

function the_init() {
	if ( !function_exists('register_sidebar_widget') || !function_exists('register_widget_control') )
		return;

	// this is the output funtion i want to take over!
	function function_to_take_over($args) {
		extract($args);
		$options = get_option('function_to_take_over');
		$title = empty($options['title']) ? __('lame text i dont like','WPEC') : $options['title'];
		$text = empty($options['text']) ? __('more text i want out of here','WPEC') : $options['text'];
		echo $before_widget;
		echo $before_title . $title . $after_title;
		echo $text;
		op_function();
		echo $after_widget;
	}

	function another_function_in_the_init() {
		// some other function
	}

	wp_register_sidebar_widget('wpemailcapture',__('widget name','WN'), 'function_to_take_over');
	wp_register_widget_control('wpemailcapture',__('widget name','WN'), 'another_function_in_the_init');

}

add_action('plugins_loaded', 'the_init');

so here is my attempt (wrong but hopefully it will show where i am trying to go)…

in my functions.php…

// my replacement function
function function_to_take_over_mg($args) {
	extract($args);
	$options = get_option('function_to_take_over');
	op_function();
}

function mod_wig(){
	add_filter('function_to_take_over', 'function_to_take_over_mg');
}
add_action('plugins_loaded', 'mod_wig');

thanks for any and all insight!

m