I actually found most of the more colorful examples easier to work with, though I'd probably prefer something more middle-ground the most. That may just be because I use Sublime most of the time and it's more middle-ground itself.

It seems like the author gets most of their value from associating the specific highlight color with a specific meaning. I think I get most of the my value from the different highlight groups. From that perspective, I don't really care if I open an editor and strings are green - I care strings form one group that's different than variable names or etc. The main problem I had with the "complicated" scheme was the reuse of purple: branching, looping, imports, functions, this, new - these are not at all related so making them purple doesn't help me (or the author), regardless of total color count.

I don't think either way is wrong, but it may feel like it to different people.