I dont know if painting the heat spreaders would affect cooling, I guss it would depend on the paint you use. Also for that case you could do a little 80mm blowhole on the top, or a CD drive bay mod, ect.
For the cd drive bay mod I remember seeing some worklog of it, but I'll just explain the basics. take off a 5inch bay cover and cut out a stencil (your online handle, design, ect.) and then dremel it out of the drive bay cover. then mount a (red?) cold cathode or even a LED array behind the cd drive cover, and you should get a good looking mod.