For the record, my hubwheel is never not orange. I don't know if I'm unusual in this. I don't necessarily consider this a drawback. I dismiss things as I respond to them, not as I read them - so I don't mind that it's always orange, it lets me know I have things to get back to. I was just wondering if anyone else experienced this variant on functionality, I guess. *Also, it's impossible to access notifications on certain early versions of IE. This is probably a factor too. I have managed to access mail through the profile link, but the orange hubwheel link doesn't work.
If you use the "dismiss all notifications" function in the corner of that page it will cease being orange. Once in a while I have to do it because there's no humanly possible way for me to clear them out one by one.