I'm not sure if these were so wild, since they don't seem to be companies as high-profile or controversial as Color. Siri is somewhat wild insofar most people didn't expect that Apple was working on such a project. I'm talking more about the Apple will buy Twitter/EA/RIM stories.
I would say they are more high profile than Color. The only reason we think of Color as high profile is because it was a failure. Anyone outside of our bubble will never have heard of it. Siri and Chomp were both successful and had a lot of users. People actually cared when they were shut down. I doubt many people will care if Color gets shut down.