Honestly, I see this every time I go through the development version of Ubuntu. The art team comes up with awesome artwork, then Mark Shuttleworth comes along and says, “Nope, that’s too good-looking, we need to make our distro hideous. What’s the worst, least appealing color we could pick? I know! BROWN! It’s the color of poo!”

Despite being gimped before they started with a crappy colorset, the Ubuntu Art team has come up with a great looking start splash screen:

Not ugly. See all the reds and yellows in there?

But of course, that’s too un-dull, so in recent revisions it’s been replaced by this dullard of a splash screen:

Looks just like every other thing in Ubuntu. Brown.