The fact that Colors' story does not acknowledge Super Sonic is irrelevant. Nobody plays Sonic because of its deep narrative. Every Sonic fan had been bitching ever since the turn of the millennium for Super Sonic to return to stages. Colors was the first time that ever happened, it was kind of a big deal, not exactly a minor skill bonus like in Generations. So they locked it behind the most ridiculously tedious requirement imaginable, that forces you to replay and scour EVERY STAGE IN THE GODDAMN GAME until you're sick of seeing a single one of the game's polygons...and then keep playing because you still didn't find them all. THE ENTIRE POINT TO SUPER SONIC IN STAGES IS REPLAY VALUE, and it should never ever have been locked behind the most replay-killing requirement imaginable.
To be honest, besides a few fiendish ones like the infamous Red Ring right behind the goal or the ones that are super incredibly easy to miss and not get a second shot at without a restart, the problem with Red Rings in Colors if you think about it that way is the excess filler stages that all have 5 rings to gain as well. It's not that they're usually hard to find, odds are if a Wisp power-up's in a larger-than-normal area or completely unnecessary to progression there may be an extra route or a secret to uncover; but the sheer number of stages compared to a normal Sonic game is what really makes it tedious. It's actually fun to discover hidden routes in Generations for the Red Rings - not so much when there's like six acts of Asteroid Coaster with 5 rings each resulting in 30 rings overall just for one zone.
Besides, my point was moreso that SP Rings in Advance 2 were especially fiendish compared to the Red Rings since if you want to reap their rewards, you have to basically throw Advance 2's entire mentality and design out the window and get every single one in a run with meticulous planning and precision while still being fast enough at certain points for tricky jumps. And worse yet, it was
required. If Red Rings had to be recollected on each run for them to 'count', i'm pretty sure we'd all resent them from the bottoms of our hearts. And Lost World pretty much turns them into another Super Sonic reward like Colors, but while having less to collect overall due to 4 acts a zone, throws all logic into a blender by having so many you only have one shot at grabbing per stage run or having ridiculously lethal circumstances around them that turn Lost World into one of the hardest Sonic games in years with how dickish the level design can be.
Compared to that malarkey, Colors is just tiresome.