Exactly. I made 0to255 to solve the "I need a slightly lighter color" problem, which is actually a really frequent one. There are already really awesome tools for color inspiration like those on http://www.colourlovers.com/
Because Flash objects are positioned above every other element on the page, I'd have to guess which color is below the large, single Flash object. I tried doing this with variable levels of success, but concluded that having a Flash object for every color didn't have any huge downside. Performance seems to be acceptable, unless you're using IE. Let me know if you have any performance issues.