Hiroshi Sotomura, the Daily lead, chose the color, but it's under some discussion right now to ensure we don't have any clashing between Daily and smod, though I personally don't find many issues with it. Bold and italic are already quite different anyway and your shade is [noticeably] darker. In fact, I'm a little jealous... the admin red is probably one of the worst. Ohhhhh wells. :'(