@Jon Hendry: Perhaps as a compromise you could try darkening the text a bit and lightening the background a bit. Maybe move the text halfway between black and the current setting, and the background halfway between white and its current setting. Or maybe just darken the text that way.
I appreciate your thoughts. I spent a lot of time on finding what I consider to be the right combination and I don't plan on changing the default right now. However, I do plan to make it easier to override the default.