The new Themeroller only supports 1.9+ for theming. But there are still many instances where themes compatible with versions older than 1.9 are needed. Up to a few days ago we were able to go to
Well, because for the time being I'm stuck on JQuery UI 1.8.24. 1.9+ doesn't support #hash tags with <base href> when creating Tabs, and until it's fixed (which seems isn't going to happen) or I can find a way around it that doesn't involve modifying JQueryUI's base source (unknown), I have no upgrade path.
I also would like to have the old themeroller back. The problem is, that in bigger website projects you can't update the ui library only because you want to make changes to the theme. I think in most cases it's not about a new theme, but updating an "old" theme. Who pays the extra work, if side-effects happen to the ui of the website, because we need to update the ui library for a simple theme change?! Please think in a bigger dimension...
Version 1.8.x was there for years and I think it is still used in most websites out there. Disabling the old themeroller is a real disadvantage in case of long term support. Version >= 1.9 is still new for running project life cycles...
Presumably you're editing all of your other CSS without a visual tool. I don't understand why you can't just update the CSS you're using for jQuery UI the same way. In fact, it's likely that you're even trying to update some other rules to use the same colors you want to put into ThemeRoller.