There's actually a good article out there

Why the old paint didn't work anymore. You have two options with helmets. Create/make the plastic in the color/style you want (and either buff it to a shine or keep it matte), or paint them.

We choose to paint, so do many schools. The new materials don't hold paint the same way the old helmets did. This isn't unique to ND. They had to change the process, because by the end, with the new helmets, and our old paint, it looked like shit.

Did they have to pick the exact gold they did, via hydrographics? No, but it's still better than what we had immediately before.