Wait, this doesn't sound right. The thing about brown M&Ms was that they'd had too many safety problems, and if numerous small things in the spec were violated

Wait, this doesn't sound right. The thing about brown M&Ms was that they'd had too many safety problems, and if numerous small things in the spec were violated that meant there was a safety problem. That's the core problem they were trying to solve. If numerous small things are violated in a form, like the ones mentioned elsewhere in the thread, then that's actually pretty minor.