Curious you should mention 3 blooms at once and all that.
I've been wading through some articles in the Iris Bulletin (I got an e-membership), and there was one article that hit on just this point (various iris authorities/hybridizers weighed in on it). Basically it seems to come down to, the perfect iris for a show, is not the perfect iris for the garden. In the first case, the perfect show scape has 2 or more blooms open. But if 2 or more blooms are open at the same time, that means the bloom season is over quicker, which makes it a bad specimen for the garden. In the garden, you want those blooms one at a time, to extend the bloom season.
My interest is not on shows, but on garden performance.
I gather "candleabra" branching is longer branching, then?
