In this setting the "dark & gritty" thing is imho a good choice - but what I hate is that statement like "all of our mature customers want it so !" I'm mature, I'm a customer, and I definitively do NOT want it so - which means to me that their generalization is just plain wrong.

Of course I'm in the minority here, but even the existence of minorities means that one just cannot say "everybody wants it so".

It's like … as if I'd say "everybody likes to eat bread !". That's wrong, because people with an allergy against Gluten just cannot eat bread like everyboy else.
( Read here for more : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten-free_diet )