How about adding a project wide default page background color to the Project Options? I get so tired of having to set the bgcolor every time I add a new page.

If you set up a master page with the correct background, that will automatically set the background for the new page.

For anyone else reading this, there is a tutorial: Help > Tutorials > "Page Templates" -- very useful if you want all your pages to have the same basic format.

A master page works very well if you have common items that belong on each page and, like you, I recommend using one.

Often that is not my case and I'm working from a fresh page, unless I want to set up a blank page as a master, in which case I have an extra page in my project.