However a few things I would like to raise:
1) I dont agree with Michael as I think the …… makes the form to cluttered.
2) In the comment section you have the fields on the left and the field titles on the right. That could work nicely. Or do you think its messing with what we know too much?
3) Another option could be to keep the field titles in the actual field itself.

However in saying all that I do like the background solution.

We’ve designed using labels aligned left and aligned right against the form fields, and our users have consistently prefered the aligned right style. To overcome any difficulty in scanning, as Luke suggests is the disadvantage of the right alignment, we’ve always limited the number of label/field combinations to 3 to 6 in any one sector or grouping within a form.

We have found that the logical grouping of label/field combinations — and giving that group a name and sub-head within the form — is more important than anything else to promote usability, efficiency, rapid scanning and lack of eye strain for users of large form screens.

Once you create groups of labels/fields make sure you align them consitently on a grid. This makes for a lot less “eye ping-pong” for your users.

Well, our developers *hated* this requirement. They said it made no sense, was not a web behavior, was next to impossible to implement, and amounted to putting our users in wizard jail. No matter what rational arguments, best practices research, threats, cajoling, beer or tears we tried, we got nowhere, and this requirement was never built.

To this day, we refer to this battle of wills as “the Azkaban issue.”