If you have a konsole window open on a Root Console when you shutdown it will use the defaults for the Root Console instead of the default for the base konsole. My konsole default is black on yellow, medium font and my Root Console is black on white, large bold font. So if I leave it on Root Console it will come up white and big instead of yellow and medium.
problem doesn't exist with kdebase-2.2.0.alpha2.2.rpm (CVS >= 20010503) (you should always choose Settings->Save Settings to save your settings - independed of you work as normal user or root)
I probably didn't explain this clearly enough the first time. I am not running KDE as root, I am running as myself but I open a Root Console from the File menu. If I leave the Root Console window open when I shutdown, all the sessions in that Konsole will have the same attributes as the window left open even if different sessions had different attributes when I shutdown. Another problem is that the Root Console is re-opened but it doesn't have root permissions. I know it's not possible to preserve root permissions across X sessions like this but maybe we should delete "Root Console" sessions from Konsole if you aren't running as root.
It's fixed in 8.0 release