Sure thing TR
The debate in the discussion of this area can go on forever since no perfect uniform exists.
This is in part because of the way the United States tested its new uniform camouflage patterns. I was at a defense technology conference a little while ago where the Australian Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) our rough equivalent of DARPA was discussing future appropriations for our armed forces. Its a partnership program with the academics in our universities.
One of the major points of discussion was the potential of following the United States lead in the use of a universal camouflage pattern. Several options were discussed most settling on the use of some sort of Multicam derivative but this was pretty idle speculation since we have not carried out any official testing like the US military has.
What was however discussed were the green zones of Afghanistan. A convincing argument was made that the US military trials did not take into account that terrain during testing.
The full report ‘Universal Camouflage for the Future Warrior’ can be retrieved here
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc...c=GetTRDoc.pdf
What is known is that the testing procedure was not set up to foresee the green zone terrain in which a large portion of combat takes place in Afghanistan (due in part to the thick terrain and river systems). In fact the testing dealt only with Woodland, Urban, Desert and Desert/Urban. Nothing like the brighter greens and dark browns associated with the green zones were tested during the trials. It is also worth noting that jungle terrain was also not tested.
So when the testing was done the currant pattern on the ACU was selected because of its high marks in the afore mentioned terrains. This is obviously correct when considering what those terrains look like, it won the battle within the set context. This is why multicam was not selected; it did not meet the testing standard set. As the DSTO people pointed out, if the testing were done again with a more wide variety of terrains a better cam pattern may have emerged.