"It's because the button has a CSS class named 'x-button' with a background-color set to '#CCC' by default..." http://www.sencha.com/forum/showthread.php?208417-Change-image-button
{
xtype: 'button',
baseCls: 'null',
cls: 'buttonRed
}
... if you only want the default look and feel of a button not the gray one ...
I've done this to change the look and feel to get the default one:
dockedItems: [{
xtype: 'toolbar',
layout: {
pack: 'center'
},
defaultButtonUI: 'default', // get default look and feel
dock: 'bottom',
items: [{
xtype: 'button',
width: 200,
text: 'Download to Excel',
},{
xtype: 'button',
width: 200,
text: 'Another action',
}]