unfortunately, if you've had blue bikes all your life (for example) and you really really DO NOT want another blue bike, color gets to be more important. I put my money where my mouth is and bought a custom bike because (sigh) at the time there were NO orange bikes in women's sizes. Now there are many more options, but i still wanted to go custom.. i'm just saying, color is what you have to look at!
It says something about who YOU are.