[zdw]

I'm a big fan of Vividchalk - it has a lot of contrast, and the colors are well chosen. It gives a different color to everything, which does make your terminal look like a chrismas tree light explosion, but that color does deliver extra information (which is the entire point of color highlighting).

I tried Solarized for a short while, and while I appreciate the logic that went into designing it, the lack of contrast made me switch away from it pretty quickly.

I think font choice also has a lot to do with this - some of these schemes look far better with antialiasing turned on, or larger font sizes. Inconsolata 13 pt here.