>>> “Hi all, i spoke to our Design Lab again and this was a misunderstanding from my side. The Design Lab is constanly looking trough our color pallette to make them as consistant and efficient as possible.

>>> “So these were only thoughts and not any final decisions so please take the information down again everywhere you posted it and let the people know that no final decision was take so that it was basically a misundestanding.”

Is this a case of announce something, see what feedback you get, then announce that you never meant to announce it in the first place?

But I wouldn’t read anything into the first point. Given the SW license there’s always going to have to be a trans-black colour of some form. My guess (backed up by a further guess of Steve Witt) is that the old trans-black (technically a transparent brown in LEGO speak) will just be replaced by a very similar colour that tarnishes less easily and is cheaper to make. That’s what’s happened to other transparent colours that have been changed (take 80s pieces and compare them to late 90s pieces to see what I mean).