I would stick with
Georgia. Or
Palatino Linotype. Or maybe
Garamond. No, I'd go with
Georgia. It's the least obnoxious.
And no color. But if you must do color, nothing bright and tacky like Red.
No, that's horrible.
I feel you though, it really is. ATRL needs a font box in the Quick Reply box. I used to always do Franklin Gothic, but I got tired of copying and pasting the code. I downloaded a notepad add on and pasted the code in there for quick use BTW. Plus, the font was too small. And changing the size to 3 just looked obnoxious.
I'm thinking of changing my font to
Arial Narrow. What do you think? 
And no to the red. Stick with black.
