I mean whenever it's a red but not the qm they still groan I think it's really silly to be honest.

Some backup reds are worth groaning like that. Some aren't. Sometimes the crowd don't groan when they really should, and sometimes the reverse.

And often it's actually terribly unclear

Because some other reds can be very important in the offers. Unless you're definitely going all the way, you need some backup reds as well as the £250,000.

The other reds can also be very influential in whether or not a deal is made as well. Half the decisions I would make could be changed just by having/not having the £20,000 as a fallback (as in Ashleigh's game - Had £20,000 not been there, I'd have dealt the £40,000, so that would make the difference between £16,000 for me).

I'm sure Morris wouldn;t have gambled for the 250k had his back-up been a blue....and on the other hand if Laura had left a sizeable red instead of the 3k, the banker would have offered her a whole lot more and she might have dealt!

Spot on.