Just curious. I have the thalmor black and gold replacer mod but I am using the version that creates and adds armor specific to the thalmor and not suppose to impact the normal elven armor... but all elven armor is dark as well though a different color than the black and gold thalmor armor... I use book of silence textures, is this mod responsible for this?

Yes, there are both gold and black versions of Elven Armor in BoS. The default selection is black.