The only thing that strikes me as in poor taste is the choice of colors for the new palette. His monitor must have really low saturation, because a few of those

The only thing that strikes me as in poor taste is the choice of colors for the new palette. His monitor must have really low saturation, because a few of those colors look pretty bad on mine. The light grey looks dull and dirty, and the contrast with the text is insufficient on the light blue and orange backgrounds, both of which are too bright to be comfortable; though they might be fine with dark grey text instead of white. It's really hard to find a light blue and light orange/yellow that looks good as a solid background for text on a wide range of displays, and white text on a light background is just asking for trouble. Other than that, this is some fine work. Microsoft should hire this guy to replace the person currently in charge of branding, marketing and packaging design (or invent that position and make all those people report to him).