I think it's not so much that there are too many combinations of capabilities, but more that it is hard to express the device/host constraints in a user-friendl

I think it's not so much that there are too many combinations of capabilities, but more that it is hard to express the device/host constraints in a user-friendly way. Does a 'red' stripe mean my 'green' device will or will not work? Or, confusing things further, work fine but maybe not be able to pull enough power to (fast) charge or have degraded capabilities like full speed data but no display. IMO this is something that should be handled by the host / software and a clear nomenclature for capabilities. Notify the user if there are missing, required capabilities or performance is degraded and that they need to upgrade the cable to achieve X. As long as the cable meets the minimum USB spec this should be achievable fairly easily. Where a marking is absolutely needed though is 'charging only' cables with no data lines. These are infuriating.