@blobjim Here it actually only affects singleplayer (and LAN game host). The effect is reversed. On a server, network item stack serialization "fixes" the empty slots and they don't display the animation when scrolling.
It should be noted that this doesn't affect singleplayer (and LAN game hosts) because locally, within the same client, packets are transferred in-memory, thus the map decorations don't get serialized and no information is lost.
The in-memory transfer is also the cause for MC-86619.
Still present in 1.11-pre1
It appears that the change of text color is unintended and happens as a temporary side effect of manipulating the boss bar using commands.
The culprit seems to be
net.minecraft.server.CustomServerBossInfo.getFormattedName()
where the boss bar's name isn't copied before it's manipulated and thus gets mutated (MCP names).