I think that the text color for the taskbar buttons can only be changed in Skin Studio.  Likewise for the IE pulldown menus...with IE 8, however, you cannot actually change any of the colors or skin that menu....it is not possible at this time.  The text color for the text in the drop down IE menu(from the menu bar at the top of the window, not the one that is next to the IE tabs) is derived from the start panel pop up menu, and that can only be changed through Skin Studio.  As far as the Favorites Menu that is next to the IE tabs, the text colors are derived from different areas of the system colors...and those colors affect other places in the skin, and should only be done in Skin Studio...and even with that, it is almost impossibe to get the text to look like you want it to....this is one area of the blind that us skinners hate with a passion!

I just don't understand why pretty much every skin I try, the pull down menus (Print, Page, Etc.) for any internet browser I use, (IE or Google Chrome) are black and the text is unreadable until you mouse over the selection.  This is a huge problem I can't believe hasn't been addressed.

Those menu colors and text are derived from the start menu pop up menus colors.  We don't have the ability to directly skin them in IE 8 as we did with earlier versions of IE.  Microsoft has those areas hard coded into the browser.  The workaround is to make sure that the start menu pop up menu is a light color, because that is where the color of those menus come from.  And the text colors come from that same menu.  The only thing that we can skin in those menus is the mouseover.  And, like I said above, that can only be done in Skin Studio.

Also, what IE are you on and what OS?

Well, here's a quick folow up.  Apparently in the Tron Legacy skin, changing the System Color: Menu value changes the toolbar menu color AND the color of the pull down menus in IE.  And even more odd, it changed the color but not to the color I selected.

I could swear on another skin it only changed toolbar menus.

So let me ask another question.  Do the names of those items vary from skin to skin depending on the skin creator or are they standard from skin to skin?

If you want to change the text color on the taskbar buttons, it's pretty easy, but you do need SkinStudio (the free version will work). Open up the skin > Start Menu and Taskbar > Horizontal taskbar (or vertical if that's what you're using) > Buttons > Text tab > there's a dropdown for each button state (normal, pressed, etc) and you'll need to select a new color for each state.

Some skinners name their colors/fonts according to what section they're used in, some just leave them unnamed (wish they all named them using the first method).

The best way to get the colors you want for text colors, etc., is to do it through Skin Studio...that way you would have better control over the colors.  Doing it through Windowblinds will not always give you what you are looking for, as you have already discovered.  In order to change the color of the start menu itself, you could use the colors tab in Windowblinds config ...but that would change the color of the skin globally, not just the start menu.  The only other way to change the start menu color is to open the skin in Skin Studio, navigate to the Start Menu Section, find the pieces of the start menu, open those in a graphics program, change the color, then re-import those pieces into Skin Studio.  It is a pain in the butt to do, but there is no other way to do that.  Now, you are learning what us skinners go through when making blinds!

LOL!  I'm one of the guilty parties....I do name my main fonts the actual name of the font, and any special fonts I use I name them for where they are used.  However, I generally just number my colors...it just works better for me.