Hi TexanPingu,
I like your answer very much because you differentiate two things: white vs metal and small vs large interface.
And indeed, I have nothing against the white itself. But I have something about the interface being bigger that the content. The status bar is Safari as an example should be smart like the dock and appear only when I howe over the bottom of the window.
Mail interface could remain white, but icons should be more compact (like Safari icons) and I don't like the side panes (that's true for all software with side panes), I largely prefer to have an additional column in the window (like iTunes and Finder do) than this pane on the side of the window.... windows are no elephants
.