The standard changes the WRONG way after a yellow.

A caution, by its very definition, indicates that a player has committed an offense and should not continue in the same way. I would be fine with the sense that having issued or not issued a caution does not change the interpretation of the rules and the leeway afforded by the referee for infractions.

But that's not how it goes in practice -- typically, having shown a card to a player, the official is hesitant to show another card. Thus, by having done one bad thing, a player gets to do more and/or worse bad things than they otherwise would! This makes no sense! If the standard must change, it should go the other way -- a caution would, again as the word plainly means, indicate that the player has already been warned and is now on thin ice, such that any further misdeeds, even relatively more minor, will result in an escalation of enforcement.

People will argue that the harsh penalty of ejection of the player and forfeiture of their roster position on the field justifies making it harder to earn a second yellow versus a first, but I still think that runs counter to the logical consequence that being booked should have. But, because of this reality, I do support some "orange" card, whether it be reducing the team by a man for a temporary duration or ejecting the player but retaining the ability to field a full 11 -- so long as this penalty would rid us of the awful "you were bad, so here's a license to be worse" status quo.