I don't yet know if it's related, but I tried to reproduce this
effect on 8-bit displays yesterday and the only one I could get
to do it was a laptop. :) I think it was a CT655x chipset,
since that's what Toshiba puts in their Tecra line.
I started an 8-bit X server on a Matrox G100, hogged all the
colors possible with Netscape, xearth, xv, and AbiWord
still looked great. I got the exact same funky technicolor
on the Laptop, though... the client area of AbiWord looked
good but the window manager decorations, the root window,
and other applications got flipped.
-- Shaw Terwilliger