Exactly. I made 0to255 to solve the "I need a slightly lighter color" problem, which is actually a really frequent one. There are already really awesome tools for color inspiration like those on http://www.colourlovers.com/
Because Flash objects are positioned above every other element on the page, I'd have to guess which color is below the large, single Flash object. I tried doing this with variable levels of success, but concluded that having a Flash object for every color didn't have any huge downside. Performance seems to be acceptable, unless you're using IE. Let me know if you have any performance issues.
The page takes a couple of seconds to refresh on a 2007 Mac Mini.
Take a look here, this piece of code provides `copy("text");` in JavaScript, and uses only one SWF (I think). sites.google.com/site/yangshuai10/jquerycopyplugin