Why can't we use a Translucent system bars with and ActionBar

Question

While updating my apps to Kitkat, I just wanted to give them a gorgeous look on KitKat using the Translucent property:

Translucent system bars

Answer 1

All of the answers extend the ActionBar either programmatically or from layout: what this means is that when the app gets launched or recreated the system will look for the theme (which isn't aware of the fix) and show a VERY UGLY status bar coloured with whatever is the window background...!

I have created an example of how to do it using the theme only:

https://github.com/Takhion/android-extendedactionbar

I hope it will be useful for someone :)