Personal opinion time, ok for most areas (prefer darker personally), but in the galleries when looking at an image, black or dark (variant of grey) background. The use of a bright background does tend to draw the eye and DOES interfere with the percieved image colours. Tutone, white text on a dark background is printing process expensive. It uses a lot of ink and with bleed can make for a very difficult time to read fine character text. This is why it is not employed more. Also on a computer screen, the eye tends to respond to the aggregate brightness of its view. A bright white background tends to overpower fine dark characters. Conversely since the black is a lack of radiated light the aggregate levels are lower due only to the text light. The real problem comes in when there is a mix of these, the eye must adapt many times as it moves around such a mix of areas of high illumination levels and low illumination levels. This becomes especially fun when trying to look at a low level object surronded by high illumination levels.

Pass no temptation lightly by, for one never knows when it may pass again!