You are vicious...Was that really an affront?... c'mon guys, you tell us to lighten up...
A big part is also your monitor's settings and natural luminosity a good LCD is more luminous (don't go technical these are just observations) and your monitor settings come into play so you could of course pick another of Goth's variants and fine tune it with your monitor's settings. No one is imposing stuff on you.
For the record I too at start thought they were too dark but with some setting modifications and getting more accustomed to the new atmosphere I have to say I am now a firm supporter of his first choice.
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