In 1879, in post-civil-war America, Henry George published a very popular, and still referenced, book entitled “Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth: The Remedy.” The title of this paper is an obvious play off of George's title. George suggested that the so-called “Gilded Age”, which was supposed to be a time of economic growth and reform for everyone in the nation, was not for many as the increase in wealth for some was accompanied by increased poverty for many others. George also had several creative solutions to these problems. When looking over the research and application of color appearance models (and fundamental colorimetry) across the 20 years of Color (and) Imaging Conferences, it becomes clear that there are also cycles of increased progress (wealth) followed by increased poverty (want) that somewhat parallel George's main thesis. In general, when new capabilities are developed, their shortcomings are quickly and sometimes vociferously elucidated and it can appear that the want of the shortcomings outweighs the wealth of the advances. In some situations that is indeed the case. This paper traces some examples of that path and reaches a destination describing one view of the status quo of color science.