At this point, why not just wait for Apple to release their RCS implementation? The nicest thing about iMessage (for me, at least) has always been that it was a significant improvement to SMS that just worked, with graceful fallback to SMS for anyone who didn't use it. No installing third party apps, wondering if someone new I wanted to contact would be on that messaging app, etc. A nice bonus, but not something that…
It's not weird. It might be weird in your eyes, but given how much exclusionary behaviour I've seen based on bubble colour, it's not weird in the slightest. I'd like to believe that apple supporting RCS will magically fix the whole 'green bubble/blue bubble' thing but I'm bearish as it seems to be more a cult thing than anything to do with functionality (I say this as an iMessage user). And please, spare me the trite…
Wow, okay then.
Anyway, I'd argue that the bubble color serves a useful purpose. At this point I definitely want to know whether someone I'm talking to is SMS or iMessage, because there's a meaningful difference in capability that will affect choices I make (like how to get pictures or video to them). Whether it's colored bubbles or something else, it's going to exist in some form.
I'd be bearish too if that were an important thing to fix, because it's human nature that's the problem, not the technology. The solution is a universal messaging technology that is as good as iMessage and has the broad reach of SMS. Perhaps if Google can get their proprietary extension of RCS standardized and implemented by the carriers directly.