Intuem isn't a particularly good MIDI editor - editing note velocities and continuous controllers is particularly painful, though there are some neat features. It's really a bare-bones tool aimed at the educational market, but that means it's cheap! I do think the shading is useful, though, even if you aren't interested in whether the notes are black or white, as it provides an immediate visual reference as to which notes are which, without having to run your eyes over to the edge of the screen to see where they line up with the picture of the keyboard. (Actually, Intuem goes even further than the shot of DP you used, because it shades all the 'C' notes in pink as well as shading black notes in grey). It's useful for me because I often come up with ideas on guitar or something, and then program them into the computer by hand: "err, 3rd fret on the bottom string, so that's a G - now, where's G on the screen?"