I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but a grey bar for inner pages is bad bad bad.
It basically means Google has lost faith in the page for some reason. You will note that most grey bar pages have either the +30 or the dreaded +950 penalty.
Not many people have been able to recover from the grey-bar.
Dom, you link was for a post in 2003, things have changed quite a bit the last 2 months.
the best place to read up on this and the latest Dewey update is at webmasterworld.
If you thought the US ban on gambling had a big affect on affiliates, I would say the latest Google Dance is proving way more severe.
cheers
Merlin