OK, first of all this should fit in the "Site problems" section; never mind, some moderator will surely move it.
I don't think the revamping of the forum has anything to do with the releasing of Flight Simulator X (which happened a few months ago), but rather it was done as a consequence of the whole web site moving to another server.
As for your friend's problem, I believe the forum administrators will likely come up with a solution, namely a high contrast template to choose in the Profile options. Have faith.