It seems that the sandtroopers on the dewback only wore grey colored pauldrons and they carry a dewback prod, like a lance. It's funny how a motocross chest protector can be made to look like an official military uniform accessory!
The black pauldrons were re-used in ROTJ as chest armor for the Imperial Gunners. I also read that nobody had grey pauldrons, it was just the lighting.
If I ever made a Sandtrooper, it would automatically have to have the orange pauldron. That's the look of the Sandtrooper I remember from my childhood.
Ya, I like how *us dorks* can turn orange, black, and white into ranks, ya know? And ya, its preety widly accepted that there weren't any grey pauldrons. Just Hasbro making an extra dollar off people who thought there were.
When (not if ) I do a Sandy, I'll deffintly do a white pauldron. For me they've always stood out for some reason.
I thought the ranking came from SW resources after the fact... not from us 501st dorks. As for gray, it only existed as the Dewback rider from the Hasbro action figure. It didn't appear in the film as gray.