I was looking for an orb on the AH and I noticed the Madstone Orb and another one, both had multiple level versions with coloured text.

Normal or Epic Normal (light blue), Hard or Epic Hard (orange), and Elite or Epic Elite (red).

Now I get that the type/level is from the difficulty the item dropped in, but does the colour have any other significance?

The reason I ask, is I am high enough to equip the Madstone Orb ELITE version, but the (Elite) text is in red, and red is usually a signifier that you are unable to use item due to some other requirement, so was wondering if the coloured text meant anything related to that?