i think you may be right. this idea is probably more trouble
than it is worth. however, as much as i personally dislike
most uses of color in top-level and reply nodes (it doesn't
really bother me on home nodes), i don't think that getting
rid of all color is desirable yet (or necessary, as you've
observed).
one thing that quite possibly should be fixed is the
Saints in Our Book page. that page is largely unreadable
with the dark theme, since both the text color and the
background are gray (thank goodness for visual highlighting
of selections (too bad it isn't XOR'd so that i could see
my selection on a yellow page)).