Hi Matthias, thank you for taking the time to update the patch series.

Patch 3 undoes something patch 1 introduced, perhaps because you
intended a subset of the patches for the emacs-24 branch and the rest
for trunk? Could you clarify that?

I applied all 4 patches and find './src/emacs -r' works correctly.
However, the behavior of './src/emacs -nw -r' is different from
emacs-24.3. I have my gnome-terminal configured to white on black, so
24.3's './src/emacs -nw -r' starts with white background. With your
patch, './src/emacs -nw -r' starts with black background. Not that I
mind the -nw behavior, but I suspect the behavioral difference is
unintended.

+      (when (and (eq face 'default)
+         (frame-parameter frame 'reverse))
+        (let ((fg (face-attribute face :foreground frame))
+          (bg (face-attribute face :background frame)))
+      (set-face-attribute face frame :foreground bg :background fg))))))

Wouldn't there already be a place in code responsible for the swap?
(x-handle-reverse-video and tty-handle-reverse-video?) I'm unsure why
the fix would entail a new place in code responsible for it.

For my information, could you confirm the effect my patch has on your
theme problem?