Quite a while ago, when I was just getting into Linux, I used openSUSE as my distro. One thing I recall was that the boot loader screen (it was what is now called GRUB Legacy) was a lot more pleasant to look at than the current Ubuntu screen.
Compare the two at the bottom of the page.
What I would like to know, is whether it is possible to achieve a similar thing in Ubuntu. I'm aware of BURG (in fact I used it on a previous computer when 10.04 came out), but it seems development has ceased on it, and so I would rather avoid it. I've done a bit of research, and it seems that there isn't much up to date information on GRUB themes: this page from the wiki refers to 9.10, and even then the themes don't come anywhere near to being as attractive as the openSUSE ones.
Obviously this is not something essential, but clearly it can be done, and I was wondering how. I read somewhere about gfxboot being used by openSUSE, but this seems to be used by syslinux as opposed to GRUB.