>>>What's with the tan/earth tone colors on the bottom pane when viewing message list? I can't tell what's been viewed as the links look like the same color as those not viewed. Is it just me or is this global?
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>>The messages I didn't read show in blue color and messages I read in purple.
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>I can't even tell what color mine are. The font is very thin. Maybe gray. When highlighted, they all appear blue, like a standard link color. Why has this changed?

Luckily didn't change for me yet, so I can not answer your question.