Could coloured admiral ranks work again?

When did the red, white, and blue rank system disappear, and should it return?

Its use faded during the mid-nineteenth-century reforms; reviving it is proposed as useful for a much larger navy.

Colour grades offered a way to create finer levels of seniority within the same admiral rank. A revived system is favoured if the navy becomes large enough to need those distinctions. The fictional space navy in Honor Harrington supplies a comparison for handling a very large force. The older Royal Navy practice declined as fleet grouping and Admiralty organisation changed in the mid-nineteenth century, although some officers continued using the familiar colour titles.