[proexploit]

It actually isn't a mistake so I can understand your confusion. #111 or #222 can often be used without losing readability but this doesn't mean black is a mistake. When's the last time you went to a website and said "This text is just too dark!". Hopefully I don't come off too rude, the idea that black as a text color is a mistake is almost offensive to me. Different perspectives.

[Nick_C]

Well, there are plenty of studies that show high contrast makes for readability issues. For example, I get faint after-images that flick around the page when reading black text on white. It's very distracting.

I get your point about different perspectives, but for web pages we want everyone to read, we should be designing for the lowest common denominator.