Here's why badge colors matter.

There are fundamental human factors in the choices we make: Does an experience lead to a pleasure stimulus, or a sense of belonging, or a sense of meaningfulness, or a sense of accomplishment?

With WCG, there is satisfaction in directly contributing to the search for solutions to crucial existential problems of our time and satisfaction in interaction with others who are also contributing.

There was also an aesthetic pleasure and sense of accomplishment in the accumulation of the brightly colored digital baubles that change as milestones are reached: the badges.

The bar to participation in WCG is low - simply possess a compatible computing device, but the bulk of WCG computing power comes from a core of 10 or 20 thousand enthusiasts that have optimized, upgraded, expanded and dedicated their computing resources, often for more than 10 years. This core group of contributors clearly enjoys the badges - their comments about badges are scattered throughout the forums. There are tools to transform badges into beautiful banners. Eye candy. Pleasure.

The new badge symbols and explicit milestone labels are a fine improvement. The subdued new color scheme is NOT an improvement. The pleasure of the eye candy is gone.

This is not a trivial issue, IMO. I believe it could subtly diminish the success of WCG.

Bring back bright colors.
Bring back color progression with the early milestones.
Bring back the pleasure!