Ok. Although I don't have 2011 installed, 2009 and prior versions give the option to change the MS background to the color of your choice. Could it be that Autodesk's "Dark" color is something nobody else has tried and just appeals to the poster more so than black... Kevin ?
ACADuser
Civil 3D 2018, Raster Design 2018
Windows 7 Enterprise
Dell Precision 5810 Workstation
Intel Xeon E5-1630 v3 @ 3.70GHz
32GB RAM, NVIDIA Quadro K2200 4 GB GDDR5
DUAL 27" Dell UltraSharp U2713HM