Personally, I would prefer to see a darker layout. Its especially straining to read the text since its gray and not black, against a white background. In general though, I prefer darker stuff to reduce eye strain...I program with colored text against a black background...my wallpaper is mostly black or gray....my XP theme is black/gray with green accents, etc.

But my opinion doesn't really matter anyways since I'll be around regardless of what the forum looks like.