Thanks everyone for all the replies. My original thought was that Surly probably buys in bulk so black is cheaper. I was giving them the benefit of the doubt I guess. Oh well.

What I really love about the SRAM hoods is that they're very wide. When I have to climb out of the saddle, the Tektro levers (different hoods than the ones on the canti-equipped LHT) are just plain uncomfortable. They almost come to a point and really dig into my big mitts.

My biggest worry was about the difference in the amount of cable pull between the two brakes and whether or not they felt the same when set up properly. Seems like they do, so I grabbed some levers the other day & ordered some BB7 Roads. I've set everything up already so it'll be a 5-minute bolt-on job when they arrive tomorrow. Thanks again!