Honestly, I don't really like...any of these. I kinda get the intent
but they all feel icky, mushy and squishy.

It also feels too vague to me. Even our existing sentence "All Fedora artwork visible in critical path actions on release-blocking desktops must be consistent with the proposed final theme." is too vague and I can't *currently* say what it means exactly. And the proposed changes are even more vague. They seem to be driven by future-proofing, but I'd rather keep clearer criteria now and adjust them only when needed. (If I misunderstood the motivation, please provide a longer explanation). Are there any existing issues that triggered these proposals?

So using the same background as the last stable release, but adding a "pre-release" watermark would be satisfactory for you? I'd find that utterly confusing. That looks like a criterion downgrade.