Windows Live Messenger is final and not beta anymore. In this version they removed "BRB", "On the phone" and "Out to Lunch" statuses. The red colour is for busy, orange for away, green for available and grey for offline. I totally dislike that colouring way as well, the old method was much better. The only way to get around it is via skinning
I think. Have a look at
LTD by Willz. It's not exactly what you are asking for, but it has a different way of showing the status rather than the colouring method.
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