Grey Text Makes Me Crazy

I feel pretty lucky when it comes to easy access to the information I need, but today I must rant about something. What’s with the prevalence of grey text on websites? Those graphic designers who think it has elegance, sexiness, style, or god-knows-what going for it have won over more than a few site producers and cause me to gnash my teeth at least once a day. Even the IA site, Boxes and Arrows, rejects good old black in favour of a dusky charcoal, but many other sites I encounter make their text a vague light grey. Like this one: Nick Lewis’ blog. I have fiddled with monitor settings and hunted all over the browser preferences trying to adjust it to a more readable level of contrast, with no luck. Am I the only one who finds this annoying? Is it a Mac thing? Would things be different if web designers were all over 55?
And yes, even this blog is a perpetrator. It’s a tolerable grey, but could be darker. I’ll consult my tech wizard to see if I can make that happen.