I believe it's one way for us to spark interest in the project is to
update it's look.
That's not a reason to change the default theme. It's a reason to try to
develop at least one good alternative theme. You should not be proposing a
change which will provoke argument when the alternative would achieve the
same in a relatively non-contentious way/
If/when a genuinely better theme can be produced, people will WANT to adopt
it as the default. The objective should be to develop a good theme (or
multiple good themes).