Your Apps idea is an excellent point. As of right now, I certainly don't have the feature available in my apps account, but I don't have it in my @gmail.com account yet either. Apps accounts also don't have access to "Labs" features at the moment though, so this could take some time.

If I remember correctly, you can actually already apply some branding to a google apps account (if not for a free one then the paid-for version) at the moment, but I recall it being very limited. (just the logo, possibly)

(tangent: some bizarre modding going on here - I'd love to hear why)