How to configure the desktop (font color, boarder thickness)

The usual windows themes have very thin boarders. I like the look of fatter boarders and this also makes the windows easier to resize by dragging the boarders. So I switched to the Aero lite theme which gives me the thicker boarders. But this causes another problem. The text on the taskbar (including the date & time) is now black (instead of the white for the default windows theme). Actually this text is white if I move the taskbar to the top or the bottom of the screen. But I don't really have room there because of the screen's aspect ratio so I want to keep it on the left side of the screen. The black text is very difficult to read. Sure I could change my accent color to a much lighter color, but I really don't like that. (Why the text color should change when I move the taskbar location is a complete mystery).

What gives? In windows 7 I used to be able to easily choose my border thickness and font colors. Why is this no longer configurable? Is Microsoft now adapting Apple's modus operandi (i.e. we know what is best for you). Perhaps we all should be using Apple computers, god forbid.

Is there any workaround to my desktop configuration dilemma, other than to just live with some configuration that I find distasteful?

Thanks
~Paul