I think that's what I am seeing with my Dalamud Red/ Blood Red Loop. Dalamud + Apples should have a chance at going to Wine Red, but I think I "fail" and drop back a step to "Blood Red" (I didn't come up to Blood Red through the Desert Yellow-> Blood Red, though.) . My husband's chocobo went from Royal Blue right to Midnight Blue, though. Some of what we are seeing in terms of the "looping" we see, and other seeming anamolies is due to bugs. Some must be cropping up.
I keep thinking that the system hue based and you move through the spectrum. Like this image. I've been working to map the colors that way (Spectrum Colors Tab on my spreadsheet), a pattern is emerging - it's not perfect because we have to remember that it's designed how they wanted it to be. And sometimes I have to squint at the colors to figure out if they are more one color than another... especially the dark ones!