eh, I am sure there's probably something simple about this that I missed but I chanced upon a reply of mine which said that I was using the new smooth blue style, but I was purple. I switched to dark blue and made a post figuring it needed to be updated but alas, no such luck.
featurette: when a registered user select a new style in the footer, why not do the same as in the usercp and write the new setting in the db instead of a cookie... would be more efficient...