Yeah we had a pretty heated discussion about enabling this option for free users. It IS a popular feature, and it DOES drive paid accounts. We DO need paid accounts in order for Dreamwidth to survive, so it makes sense from a business perspective to make people pay for the pretty.

Time will tell whether or not this is a good decision for the business. It's certainly the best decision for the users, and we'll see how that plays out in the numbers over the coming months.