Yes, something needs to be done since Microsoft has moved the goalposts to suit itself.... and yeah, bend the rules if need be.
One of my pet peeves is having all Stardock and Winstep themes go to Public Documents by default. I don't have any public users on my PC.... just me, so why am I forced to store all my skins there? When one has a SSD drive it soon fills up because MS wants stuff to be all its own way. So that's one rule that SHOULD be bent, so that skins and other stuff can be stored on a different storage drive.... without having to jump through hoops to make it happen, not everybody is comfortable about making changes to the registry.
As for transparent backgrounds and colour where MS thinks white should be, they are a must for WB. If we're going to have an app that changes the UI, then let's have an app that can change it all.... not just the bits MS seems to think is okay with them..... cos no matter what anybody says to the contrary about the appearance of Windows being okay/good these days, it has always been in dire need of customisation to make it acceptable to me... and I guess to millions of other users as well.