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I sent in an oil sample from my Insight to Blackstone Labs at 10k miles, and mentioned I was concerned by how black the oil was. Their response was:
"It may appear dark, but that just means it's doing one of its many jobs. In this case, that would be 'cleaning'. The oil is capturing dirt and combustion byproducts so that it's removed when the oil is changed."
They suggested that based on the wear materials found in the oil, there was no unusual wear, and that there were still plenty of detergents and wear additives left, so I could try a longer oil change interval.
So, in other words, color is not a good indicator of whether your oil needs to be changed. And, I have reason to believe this, since I have 225k miles worth of 10k oil changes, and compression is still within margin of error from what it should be from the factory.
EDIT: Given how frequently you're changing your oil, you stand to save real money by getting an analysis done by a lab. You may find out (just as an example) you can go 15k miles / 18 months safely, in which case you can still very conservatively change it at 10k/12m. Base your decisions on real data!
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