This kinda works to fix the screwy colours of activex controls when Sharepoint has a non standard master page.

 

I am using BlueTab.master for my sharepoint site, I've applied it as both System Master Page and Site Master Page.
But the problem was when I click Edit in Datasheet the background, the background will be dark blue color (#596E9E) and the text is not showing because of the dark background.

Soution 1:
If you are using BlueTab.master as your base masterpage then you can just edit
Edit the
Style Library/en-us/Core Styles/band.css
file with SharePoint designer.
If you are using BlueBand.master then edit
Style Library/en-us/Core Styles/band.css

Original:
.body{
background-color:#596E9E;
height:100%;
margin:0px;
}

How to Fix:

.body{

margin: 0px;
/* Background color for ActiveX items like "Edit
in Datasheet*/
/*White background for Edit in datasheet option background*/
background-color: #FFFFFF;
color: #07321E;
}
form#aspnetForm
{
/* real background color for the site as a whole */
/*This is my
color background for the website. Leave this or change it to the color of
background you want your site.*/
background-color: #596E9E;
height:
100%;
}

Only, it comes with other problems - namely, pages that are only half filled with a form become truncated with a white bottom. 

 

This pisses me off.  Freakin' default behaviour of Sharepoint.

 

I've been trialling this now for a few months for work and I keep finding truckloads of shortcomings with Sharepoint as a portal.  I'm not sure I'd roll it out in a production environment without some sort of development support...