Why are Architect menu options grayed-out?

When you say "menu options" are you referring to the children of a menu or configurable options on a menu?

The children of a menu... but, are the children of a menu handled differently than configurable options on a menu?

Yes. A child is a structural item; options are the things you configure on the child action.

I'm just confused what you are referencing when you say "grayed-out" there are a number of places we leverage grayed out effects within the app. One the jumps to mind is when configuration items on an action inherit from flow-level settings. However, they can be modified and override the inheritance for the given instance of the action. 

If this doesn't answer your question, could you post a photo?

Thanks Nicholas! This helps.