Don’t go for the names. Literally it all comes from two suppliers and simply gets named when it hits the stores. In my wholesaler days, I was landing boxes of colonies at about $15-$20 per large colony of super bright Millies, and rainbows too.
Totally agree! I think there are some classics that get overlooked by today's "hot" corals and they deserve their name, whereas most new corals are the same species/strain and are constantly rebranded with a new name with no proven lineage. But none of this matters when people are willing to spend hundreds of dollars (if not more) on a nub. I would gladly pay $200+ for a Tyree purple monster all day long, but there's no way I would pay more than $50 for a tenuis frag (there are only a few exceptions for tenuis where I would pay more), especially when you can't even see those colors on most of them from a distance. The most colorful part of a lot of acropora is the tip, this is why a lot of them don't show colony pics. To me, if it doesn't look good from a distance, it's not going in my tank. Don't get me started on zoathus. Sorry, I'm grumpy from dealing with covid, ugh! Like others have mentioned, buy what you like, not what is trendy or hot. Remember, red dragon was over $500 a frag when it was hot and now people sell it for $20 or just give it away.