Armor coatings first of all should not be tied to armor cores, secondly armor coatings should not have locked colors the base should be a default with customization built in using some basic default colors via primary secondary tertiary options like in halo 3 but even more customizable like being able to customize your undersuit or something, possibly each other armor covering you earn or buy adds special colors to the choices, and or a pattern.
Yeah like even if we didn’t have primary & secondary, just having primary + coating layered on top would be way better than what we have & actually allow people to match their old colour schemes.
And if 343 really wants to stick to the microtransactions they can put in ‘special’ colors in the shop to buy while you start out with some basic colors red green blue purple orange yellow ect.