Take the section headers in the forums listing. That's #EBEDF0 for the background, #828E99 for the font. That's a fail. 

Are there design decisions here? I've been taking flak from members for low contrast text, and it looks like they've got a point. 

This is a really interesting tool. Try the contrast tab...

Just change the colors in your theme settings if you require higher contrast. 

What to? I can barely pick a matching tie. 

I know I can change these myself, and I presumably will have to. However it seems preferable if we met accessibility guidelines out of the box, rather than each individual site owner having to notice and then either decide to ignore it. or figure out what changes to make. And maybe there are issues here I'm not aware of, good reasons to keep the current set-up?