Response to Will

"We live in a world where color is seen as setting certain moods..."
  It is a psychological fact that color has an impact on our emotions. Many studies have shown that different colors make people feel differently; for example, red is commonly perceived as being innately related to passionate, intense feelings.  It is possible that changing the colors used while writing a paper can subconsciously change the mood of the reader.

"When writing a serious paper, a reader should not see what the writer is feeling by visuals; instead the writer should paint a picture with words..."
I wholeheartedly agree with this statement.  It is not the visuals that matter, but the ideas presented.  If they are presented in a vivid enough way, the writer loses the need to provide a visual aide; if one must use the design of the essay to sway the reader, than perhaps he or she should consider the underlying strength of one's argument.  That is not to say that every paper needs to "spring to life" off the page; for example, a scientific research paper can be a rather dry read while still conveying all of the information one needs to visualize the matter at hand while still remaining professional.

"Society has set these rules and by not following them, one can become outcast, and less accepted."
I somewhat agree with this statement; though the example Will provides is drastic, it is likely that deviating from the norm in most papers will at least make them taken less seriously, if not even totally dismissed.  That is not to say that a single instance of fudging a font or margins is going to be one's final act of writing; it is just wiser on the whole to try to stick by these guidelines to avoid any problems.