I've never seen any settings for changing the way it behaves in terms of color assignment, so yeah, seems to be stuck on using the color as the group titles. That is something that's bugged me as well.

No worries, just reminds me I need to make a note in the description about it being for the 1.x and above versions.

Thanks for the interest.

Wonder if the problem is related to the version of Adium. I'm currently using version 1.0b14. Which is why I get the name and status in the toolbar on the contact list instead of the old buttons.

As far as that background image goes... have no users on my system under that name and I've never had a background image set, so the best I can guess is that the theme I based all of mine off of way back when had it set.