What might have been neat would to have Mace's saber the traditional blue or green, and have Dooku's saber as purple. This would have done far more to underscore the "Is he Jedi or is he Sith?" question. George punked out to Sam L. when he made the blade purple, and as MF said it earlier in the thread, all bets were off at that point on saber color. The Red-saber/Sith connection never bothered me in Attack of the Clones, but the yellow-saber change MF did was really cool too.

And though I'd have probably left in the final scene with Dooku and Sidious, showing them in allegiance as the final twist, MF deftly handled weaving out the entire subplot and making his notion of Dooku simply a rogue Jedi totally work.

MF, regarding this idea about Dooku and a purple saber, would that have addressed any of your issues with the red flashes any better? i.e. Would the purple have done more to hide the red than the yellow did? And again, I think the yellow saber with the red halo and flashes actually looked pretty bitchin' on the whole.