Impertinent Question...

[oldtvman]

I think by the time color was in the late 50's the chance to make major inroads had been passed by simply because of the chicken or the egg theory.
Manufacturers that had jumped in early on the color bandwagon found out color wasn't the hot ticket they thought it was, so most of them threw the problem back in Rca's lap since they were the ones who held all the card in the color game.
By the late 50's color sets were really pretty decent, but the price and lack of large amounts of color programming were responsible for the problem.
Manufacturers got cold feet and pretty much stayed with what they had. There was no reason to do any major engineering until the problem of cost and amount of color headed in the right direction.
Most give a large amount of credit the Walt Disney and the Wonderful world of color for really helping color gain a foothold in the market. After that you saw Zenith and others jump back into the color game.