Stylesheet angst

Here’s the deal: I spent a long time as a newspaper designer. Taught the design class, in fact, and designed eMprint and the Star-News (in print).

So WordPress themes and their associated CSS are bugging the crap out of me. I really like the PressRow theme and some of the others Chris Pearson has done.

But here’s the problem with the “white, bright, clean” themes: they look like newspaper designs on the Web. There’s not enough contrast, they don’t deal with links well (contrast problems), and they aren’t designed well for reading on screen.

So what’s my alternative? I know, learn CSS and design it myself. But I don’t necessarily have time to do that right now.

What are some WordPress themes that you like? I’m open to suggestions; this is starting to drive me nuts.