About the theme issue with the design mode. I have notice that's this bug didn't affect all the control.
These one doesn't work:
- RadForm (think that's everybody have notice this one...)
 - RadRichTextBox
 - RadCommandBar
 
These one are working pretty good:
- RadButton
 - RadListView
 - RadRadioButton
 
The ApplicationThemeName trick save my life at the runtime (I can afford with a BFOD (blue forms of death), my users can't...).
Perhaps you should write in the docs where is the best place to put these three lignes of code (I personnaly think these kind of things should be written on application level)  
Imports Telerik.WinControls.Themes Imports Telerik.WinControls   Namespace My           Partial Friend Class MyApplication           Public Sub ApplicationStartup() Handles Me.Startup               Dim theme As New Office2010SilverTheme             theme.DeserializeTheme()             ThemeResolutionService.ApplicationThemeName = "Office2010Silver"               End Sub       End Class   End Namespace