Your thoughts seem similar to mine. Going overboard with the colors just turns it all into visual noise. But cutting down as far as they have removes useful colors.

I've always thought the default Visual Studio color scheme was a nice balance. And I especially like the green comment color in that theme. It doesn't scream for your attention but also doesn't fade into the background (which, annoyingly, many themes do quite literally).

Of course if the author prefers their extra minimal colors I'm not going to tell them they're wrong. Though framing it as objectively better I do disagree with.