Whether tedious or no, I for one am very much appreciating the discussion.
I've always found tension in working with the color scales, particularly the Prince and Princess colors, because the historical record shows them to have been originally codified via the astral visions of one person: Soror V.N.R. While it is entirely possible that she gathered these colors correctly from the greater empyrean, it's equally possible that she was deceived and they were, in actuality, gathered from her personal inlet with all of its personal psychological shadings. The counter-argument could then be made that, in the intervening century, her colors have been confirmed by countless astral travelers but, as seems to be the central thrust of this thread, how do we know that all of them weren't just seeing what their subconscious had been led to expect to see? If we are meant to learn the color scale first before journeying out into the Astral, we have necessarily tainted the experiment. How does one set up a control in this situation?
All of these are obviously questions of the rational, conscious, ego mind... but nevertheless, aren't they valid? Have a century of Western Magicians all been programming their minds to align with the subconscious patterns of Moina Mathers?