I play a little guitar, and there is a continuing argument on guitar forums about "tone" and the contribution that the various woods of various guitars make to the instruments' various tones. So you have a solid-body electric guitar -- essentially a plank with a number of magnetic pickups on it -- and some people claim that they can hear differences depending on what kind of wood the plank is made of, even after the sound is run through sound-modifying pedals, amps, etc. Many are somewhat skeptical of these claims. I have to say that sometimes claims of color accuracy strike me as coming from the same realm. Do viewers really see any color inconsistencies in mainstream, high-end sensors from Sony, Canon or Nikon? How would they know, without the actual photographed object sitting next to the photo? I mean, a flower could reflect any number of shades of red, and really how critical is it that exactly the same shade be represented in the photo as in the flower...and is that even *really* possible, as the shade of red in the flower may fluctuate depending on all kinds of environmental conditions, including conditions internal to the flower (depending on things like moisture uptake.) And doesn't the color in a print depend more on the printer and the manipulation of the software than on the digital uptake by the camera sensor?
I really have no problem with engineers trying to achieve better color accuracy in their sensors, but given the current options, I might not be willing to pay much to get that last .001%.