Like most of the rest of you, I have found the picture quality of the DVD's superior, even the old kinescope episodes look far better than they did on the VHS versions.
As to the question about the color. When you look at the early color episodes, no matter what format, they don't look the same as later color episodes look, even a short time later. It was a period of adjustment, they are adjusting to lighting the set differently, dealing with the new cameras and other equipment as well as something that happened alot in the early days of color in the 1960's and that is over use of color in sets and costumes. For some reason it was thought that now that we could see the color, it needed to be big and bold but that actually was too much. It happened with alot of series that switched from B&W to color. Usually, you will notice that the earliest color episodes don't look the same as later one's do and that is partly because it was soon realized that you did not have to have everything bold and bright. It became more of a realisitc blend and looked more natural.
With Dark Shadows, I noticed how the color looked in the early color episode when I watched them on VHS for the first time in 25 years. It almost hurt your eyes to watch it becuase it was too much. However I noticed that after a time of adjustment, it looked fine again, but yes the early color episodes are not the best quality overall. However, they do look better on DVD.
Richard Holt