How to change the theme of Office 2013

Wow....I find it a little astonishing that Microsoft is seriously pushing people AWAY from it's new Office product by doing something as stupid as not allowing users to change or add their own custom colors to Outlook and Office. It's so difficult to look at, especially on large monitors! I honestly haven't even got to see how it works because I can't get past the overall brazenness of the interface's colors. Something as simple as the colors are seriously driving people away. 

Are they just seriously trying to lose even more customers? wow...

Exactly what happened to me. Been a Windows user for some 25 years now. I just (reluctantly) bought my first Mac as my home desktop computer. Windows 8 is a debacle. But I do need standard office applications. Still have 2003 on my laptop and that's fine. For the home desktop I then tried 365 home thinking that all things considered the 5 licenses and cross platform option is actually an OK deal. And it looks good enough on a Mac (=Office 2011 for Mac). But when I installed it on my wife's Win 7 PC it lasted about 5 minutes before she asked me to roll back to her 2007. And exactly for the reason you and everyone else here mentions.

I feel like this is almost a disability question. They don't provide anything for people with eye issues who can't be exposed to this extreme brightness (add to that that modern LCD/LED screens are WAY too bright out of the box anyway).

Thank you for the feedback on Office’s new look. We are actively collecting, sorting and reading through feedback on Office 2013’s design and User Experience. As the audience for Office 2013 grows, we are being mindful of patterns and pain points that emerge from user feedback. While we do not have any additional Themes planned at this time, it is an issue we are watching very closely.

Notice after a year nothing still has been done by the lackluster themes forced on users.

I tried that with two better/more like Office products: OpenOffice and LibreOffice, but had to drop it before my evaluation even got started because we use a lot of VBA.

Boy, was that a let down.

You could try and go to the High Contrast Black theme whenever you use office. You can even make whatever color scheme you want. Just revert to the default theme when you are done working in Office...

Not a amazing solution but it helps.