It looking "prettier" is pretty arguable.

The body text is as close to black as it is white. #444 is borderline acceptable. #888 is absurd.

Yes, I opened it and didn't even bother trying to read before hitting the Firefox Reader View button.

What looks good about unreadable text on a blinding white page in the middle of the night (PST)? ;)

The black on light gray of old was just the right amount of contrast... TBL got it right.

That's what I came here to say. Anymore, I won't even bother to try to read an article when the site shows such contempt for its readers.

It's a very contrast of display thing I think. I've seen those sort of pages on a Macbook and they are more easily readable than they are on my machine, for instance. I have to use stylebot to 'fix' quite a few pages that commit this sin (to varying degrees). This is quite an extreme example though.

You answered your own question there. The thought stopped when they got it looking good.