make script configurable, and runnable without monitoring

This PR is opened just to show y'all where I'm going with this script, and to solicit feedback / ideas.  I recommend you pull it down and view it in an editor that does BASH syntax highlighting; I personally find it hard to read in GitHub when such large blocks are changed.  Don't bother looking at the NUMPY section or anything after it, as I haven't fixed those parts yet.
This boolean may be redundant / unnecessary since now each of the MKL-friendly programs can specify an `"mkl"` option individually. However, I am inclined to keep this line anyway, as it forces the user to address the MKL question right up front (so that if they want to compile against MKL, they see this right away and go install MKL first before proceeding). Thoughts?