With SONAR and quite a few other programs in this era of "gray is good," I bump up the monitor's brightness and contrast. It can make a huge difference (especially on the Mac, but that's a different world). On a lot of the screen shots I do to illustrate my posts and articles, I increase brightness and contrast in the graphics program. 
 
Also remember that at least the tracks can have very vibrant colors, see the tip for week #53 in "Friday's Tip of the Week."

Anderton
With SONAR and quite a few other programs in this era of "gray is good," I bump up the monitor's brightness and contrast. It can make a huge difference (especially on the Mac, but that's a different world). On a lot of the screen shots I do to illustrate my posts and articles, I increase brightness and contrast in the graphics program. 

Maybe it could be a sort of workaround or enhancement, if one uses Sonar most amount of time. But it is a sign of huge problems.

Another +1 for Sonar Mods listed above by Mudgel and done by Panup.

uhh yeah, the channel strips / tracks... are quite boring with no texture and a very sad light grey color
It is "not impossible" to make a nice colorful and textur'ish channel strip and track's in sonar..

[EDIT] Maybe some idea from all those colorful mixing desk's here, may help out ... 

Contrast pleeeeeeeez.

VariousArtist
Contrast pleeeeeeeez.

Yepp, and colors too XD ... + texture and design.

Here's a nice one :




Maybe like this :

Adq

Anderton
With SONAR and quite a few other programs in this era of "gray is good," I bump up the monitor's brightness and contrast. It can make a huge difference (especially on the Mac, but that's a different world). On a lot of the screen shots I do to illustrate my posts and articles, I increase brightness and contrast in the graphics program. 

Maybe it could be a sort of workaround or enhancement, if one uses Sonar most amount of time. But it is a sign of huge problems.

Please note I did not limit my response to SONAR; it's not the only "gray is good" program...check the Vegas skin designed for video editing suites. And the "huge problem" may also relate to whether most Windows-oriented musicians know how to actually calibrate a monitor. The Mac is light-years ahead of Windows in this respect, because there's a wizard that makes it super-simple to calibrate monitors. That, and the consistency of the built-in graphics cards which remove another variable, may contribute to why the Mac is the overwhelming choice of those working with page layout and art programs like Photoshop. When doing this kind of work, it's essential that what you see on screen are the true colors that will be represented accurately in print.
 
My enjoyment of the Mac (and the programs I run on it) increased dramatically once the monitor was calibrated properly.
 

Soundblend
uhh yeah, the channel strips / tracks... are quite boring with no texture and a very sad light grey color
It is "not impossible" to make a nice colorful and textur'ish channel strip and track's in sonar... 

You mean like this ?
 

well there's color, but no special design or texture to it, also colorful buttons / knobs 3d fx's and depth.

Now it is like a flat paper with color....

Cakewalk... hire some 3D designers, and let this software stand out from the crowd ;-)

We need it as presets, so we can change it quick, with no hassle at least four to select from
2 Hi tech and 2 retro consoles... with nice faders, buttons and knobs.. 

Remember , look's always sell...

Look at the pictures at my post above...

I have made unofficial 3rd party interface graphics for SONAR but making graphical textures in Console View is no more possible in SONAR2015. If anyone at Cakewalk graphics design HQ is reading this, please use textured backgrounds for strips so that we can customize them and let us adjust the gray color in strips to get more contrast.
 
I know that Cakewalk is not a big company and it has to think twice how to use limited resources. That said, lack of colors is an issue for _many_ users. I know that by looking at the mod download statistics.  Remember when X1 came out and I made the first Skylight interface mods? Thread about mods had read count I have never seen in any other subject at SONAR forums ever. Gray may be the general interface color nowadays. All Adobe interfaces are very gray, too, but in Adobe programs there's enough contrast between foreground and background color. In SONAR I often have to GUESS if for example FX bin plugin is enabled or not - color difference is so marginal.
 
Good news is that in some parts of the interface there is now more contrast than in X3. For example Control Bar background is a little tiny bit darker than before. Also the redesigned Audiosnap window is a nice facelift.