Circulating 2012 $2 Remembrance Day Coloured Coin

The previously untouched $2 coin looks set to get a new lease on life.

Even though the design brief has been made available, the nature of the final product to hit your pocket is still vague - perhaps 1000 words (instead of 62) may have helped with the visualisation, but I'd settle for a picture

Anyway, after a bit of research into coloured coins released into the wild (in contrast to their caged siblings), it appears expectations for durability of the coloured highlight is in the vicinity of 3 years subject to wear.

This got me wondering about design methods that could potentially prolong the life of the coloured poppy by reducing surface contact and resultant wear, such as elevated rims, a design that makes use of relief to protect the poppy, or making the poppy recessed.

It also brought up a few questions regarding potential production techniques, such as;

What method is likely to be used to apply the red colouration to the coins?
Would the "hyper-metallic" finish be practical for large scale production, and viable durability-wise?
What technique did the Canadian mint use for production of their quarters?

The use of colour on higher value circulating coins does offer scope as a security measure to reduce the likelihood of counterfeits in the absence of bi-metallics, although there does not appear to have been any widespread issues in this area and $2 is, well, small change nowadays...

Other than that, I can see such a release delivering a nice boost to the RAMs seigniorage