That sounds odd... but I've had a bit of graphic flickering too to report as of the most recent patch. (engineers and turrets, not the big stacks of ships) Not much and not too annoying and tricky to replicate (changing settings repeatedly didn't fix it... though I thought it had at first. I can't get it to repeat now but I wasn't imaging it). I was going to put a bug ticket in, though I don't know what to include in the way of savegames or useful supporting information. (I could record the screen *if* I could get it to do it again... and then provide my computer settings - graphics card, OS etc. Some of the previous graphics bugs were operating system specific... but I'm Windows 7, didn't get a chance to play on the previous few versions so only noticed it this weekend)
To Damiac. I'm sure they'll get around to looking at it but I think they're out of the office this week. (The Last Federation post mentioned having things to deal with for a week and there's a massive team of 2 (plus the odd artistic helper). I doubt it'll take a great deal longer for them to get around to it once they're back.) If you've made one account to post here then you may not know that the bug tracker is here:
http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/my_view_page.phpIt'll need a new account, but you can probably use the same name.
Personally I quite enjoy the look of seeing bugs change from red (unassigned) to blue (different shades for different things) to green (fixed). Though I wish I had more time to report them (and play full games). Also it's easier to upload files there, and you get an email if they ask you for more information. Which helps you if it's something that's really bugging you or stopping you from playing. (And you get an email when an old reported bug gets fixed... you can probably change the email alerts too... if you report lots of bugs, it's not a problem for a rare bug poster like me.)
Anyway, they read posts here too so I think for little things it's what's easier for you. It's certainly easier to chat about things here than on the bug tracker, especially if the bug is odd or hard to explain. (as with my intermittent flickering and your light grey backgrounds... though screenshots may help as well as your operating system, graphics drivers or whatever they ask for.