I put a panel behind the EditText box and color the panel. This will make the EditText box look that color. The only problem with that is the cursor. The cursor color oftentimes is set to white, so if you set the box behind to white then there is no cursor. I set the box to Dark Gray... and the EditText textcolor to DEFAULT.
Everything tends to turn into a Tower of Babel over time. Modifications, and additions, and mutations... and you end up with 8700 phones and an impossibility of programming so that all phones work with all software.
Microsoft operating systems went through the same mess.