Gustaf,
Thank you for the reply. I understand the problem.
I think for the time being, for this application, I will simply specify a static css file in the doc <head> for my full-screen display.
From a more general point of view, it would seem to make a lot of sense to implement your second idea as an option in xowiki such that the view method, when it receives a magic invokation such as {{full_screen_display=true}}, switches off the master template but outputs a document <head> that includes the css reference.
If I find time to do that I will post the code back for your consideration.
Regards
Richard