Hi Aline,
The special colours are indeed for status (e.g. primary, success, etc.) which can be applied to box() elements. However, I haven't configured valueBox() to utilise these special colours. So regardless of the theme you have chosen, you'll always get the default valueBox palette. I think it might be possible to have the theme package override these as well, but I'm not sure if that's something users would always want?
N