Ugly + opaque = still ugly.

Daring Fireball links to an Apple support document:

Some graphics cards, such as an NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200, may not have the necessary OpenGL capabilities to display a translucent menu bar even though they are compatible with Core Image. Those cards should render most effects, but not the translucent menu bar.

John Gruber muses:

So the irony is that you get a better-looking menu bar with a crappier video card.

Here’s the view from Tiger, just for review:

And here it is from Leopard on my PowerBook G4 (which doesn’t support translucency):

Here it is from my Core Solo mini:

Is the Leopard menu bar really more attractive without the translucency? I’d say it’s quite debatable. The opaque one is very muddy looking, especially on a PowerBook with a so-so backlight. There’s really nothing to love about it. On the other hand, it’s possible to find the translucent one attractive. I don’t, but someone else might.

Despite my initial thoughts to the contrary, the menu bar has grown on me a little. It’s the 3d dock that I passionately hate.

Both Leopard menu bar variations are the ugly stepsisters of Tiger, so this really doesn’t matter. It isn’t just the translucency that sucks, it’s the whole Leopard menu bar. ((Of course, Tiger’s menu bar with its subtle racing stripe was also a step backwards from Panther’s.)) It’s enough to make me consider something like ShapeShifter, and I passionately hate APE.

John goes on:

It’d be the tip of the year if there were a hidden defaults preference to use the no-translucency menu bar no matter what.

If there is one, it definitely isn’t in the Finder. I searched that one for strings. But, I suppose, it probably wouldn’t be in the Finder? Where exactly would it be? It isn’t usually that hard to find defaults strings in executables. And if it’s built using XML that should be even easier.