I don’t know, maybe later versions are tougher. Even when they did fail by burned bond wires it was at >8.5A, so it was usually not a problem, but it will still be nice not to worry about that failure mechanism.
I just ordered mine and don't have any on hand, so I can't say for 100% positive. However, the pdf datasheet shows the die size as a 5050 which is the same as Cree XML.
I would vote black also for the tube only, just to match the head. For a new flashlight, colors are a nice option! The new L7 and 26800 is actually kind of exciting.
I understand what you mean about ramping being an odd choice for throwers (I have a crescendo UI on a thrower that seems a bit unwieldy to manage at times).
But isn’t the beauty of Anduril that you can easily configure it to a stepped interface with exactly how many steps you want? And further more, with the exposed header pads, it’s not too difficult to flash almost any crazy UI setup you like. I’m a fan of this!