I think you should give this a try:
- full bar of color on left
- move category to its own column again
- keep the small bar of color next to the category name
(yes, it’ll be duplicated, but I think it could be worth it… in the category column, it builds the association of color and name… on the left, it provides it ‘at a glance’ when scanning topic names)…
Not crazy about those changes, to be honest…
Like this change… agree with your reasoning…