The issue, I think, is just not liking the advanced-backlight-statusbar-applet's default theme, because, like Nokia's sound-applet theme, it's ugly in combination with certain themes. Pardon me, it seems I've been misrepresenting allnameswereout here, by going off my flawed memory. I'd consider it a bug, at this point.

I'll get a screenshot here, though...

Man, my memory is miscalibrated. (I did remember seeing it look ugly with light themes, but misremembered the reason.) It's about that black bar in the middle of the icon. Barring some good reason for that not being either fully transparent or transparent gray, I'd call it a bug. (Though not very important; seems like it would be reasonable to sit on it till someone submits a fixed icon set.)

Ok, see what I mean about the brightness applet? The Nokia one is a thermometer-style, no rays (or, consequently, shading) in evidence.