I agree and would LOVE colored strips again.  Even just a difference in color between tracks and busses in console view.  Changing the color of the faders is not enough!

I'm used to Tungsten now, but the colored strips GUI was one of the main reasons I upgraded Sonar versions.

Don't fret too much. A while back they said they were looking into colored strips for themes. Could be one reason they've been so quiet lately as it will be a huge task to make happen.
 
Personally I like the idea but am OK without it too.

I'm still hoping for coloured strips in Tungsten too - and while I'm hoping, I also wish for a choice of nice, rich, deep colours to be available to be used for the whole strip, like the ones we can now use in the small border area. The Mercury pastels (the same colours as the border strip, but with lots of white added) are nice, but sometimes you want the visual punch of the original, non-lightened colour.
 
 
If it does prove too complicated to implement entire coloured strips in Tungsten, the option of selecting various richly coloured fader caps would come as a very welcome second choice.

Kamikaze
Not just in tungsten. It should be for all themes. Alternative ideas have also been put forward, such as borders, Fader caps. Being the idea is so popular I wish they had implemented something, being something was removed with out any explanation.

That is what's bothering me about whatever The Bakers are doing.  I'm very happy with SPLAT but the rolling updates have not provided enough information for my taste the last few months.  It's mostly been minor things but there hasn't been much explanation for what will happen as a result of the updates.
 
I know there's no way that they can predict every eventuality, but some do have predictable outcomes for most of their users.  And now we lose the Ezine and get less info.
 
The Track Strip colors is a big deal to very many of us who loathe the Mercury theme.  I was using Duckbar in X2 when I downloaded (for a looong time) X3, and when I giddily launched it I saw that grey/dull chrome and my heart sank for a few moments until I snapped out of it.
 
But overall I want much more information with the changes they make, so I don't get so immediately frustrated.

The thing to realize with colored strips is the fact that Mercury is embeded within Sonar's operational files (exe & dll). Tungsten and 3rd party themes are outside that arena and are kinda like grafted on thus making them unable to utilize strip colors in the same way Mercury does.
 
The fine folk @the Bakery have to figure out how to extend the current colorization method to include the "foriegn" themes or else design a whole new way of implementing it. Either way, it will be a difficult and time consuming thing to do.
 
If they are currently deep into R&D then we should be patient as something will eventually materialize.
 
If they stashed it deep under a pile of more important issues because they're stumped or gave up, we may never see or hear anything about it as it fades from their consciousness.

This is only my opinion, but im guessing they probably had a working version of colored strips in Tungsten but some of the colors were probably a little darker than normal. So rather than release that to us, they probably debated...
 
Developer #1- "Lets release this to our users"
Developer #2- "We cant, our forums will blow up with users complaining that Yellow looks like Gold".
Developer #1- "Yea your right, Forget it".

 

While we're on, please let me select a default background color for ALL clips on a track. It's a pain to have to set the color for every individual clip after you've recorded it.

i'd be surprised if themes got any more changes in the coming season...

If they made the little color bar at the bottom of each track or bus taller, say 3/8" that would be enough for me…