How would you guys rank his costumes?
1. For the moment, default. There are other colored versions or forms I generally tend to think of first when it comes to Ridley, but with the default skin still being what I'm used to seeing the most of with him in the game, it sticks out to me a bit more than the others I guess. Maybe one of the next skins will get pushed to my #1 spot when I expose myself to them more throughout my playtime.
2. Red. Apart from being my favorite color in general, the Super Metroid artwork and box cover appearance was my first ever exposure to the character and Metroid as a whole, so I think it's fair to be ranked this high by me, despite my partiality to...
3. Meta Ridley. Arguably his most iconic form, whose design as a skin surpassed most expectations with all the buzz its Ultimate render generated when first revealed.
4. Gold. The lack of red eyes doesn't bother me as much as others, though definitely would've been nice, but it's still more or less my "Goldar alt" that I see being a fun secondary favorite.
5. Robot Ridley Meta recolor.
6. Dark blue Neo/Ridley-X recolor.
7. Green Zero Mission recolor.
8. Light purple w/ green wings recolor.
Though don't have as much to say on the last half, none of the skins I dislike particularly, which I see all being used at some points; some more than others.
There are a lot of people who criticize Metroid's tendency to reuse bosses a lot, but I don't mind, quite the contrary in fact, I love seeing old faces pop up now and then. For me Metroid isn't supposed to be this grand story that will look nice on a Wikipedia page, I usually view the game's story largely in isolation (unless it makes a point out of depending on the other games, like Other M), and it's not one of the things I put a huge emphasis on either way.
Some things I really hope return for gameplay purposes aswell, like I'd absolutely love to fight Kraid in a Prime game, and Nightmare aswell since we're on the topic, the gravity mechanic would be cool in first person. Ridley always has the best fights too, so again, he just has to return imo.
I feel the same way about Zelda games, there are a lot of people who obsess over where each game fits in the timeline and such, but I've always just looked at the games themselves and not really where they fit in the grand scheme. With Metroid it's obviously a bit more relevant where it fits into the timeline, but sometimes it's also just about placing the game where it's the least inconvenient (like the Prime series).
I'm not that conservative when it comes to reusing other bosses, especially as one who would like to see Crocomire and some again get past the concept/beta phase, just Nightmare I have a harder time seeing written back in somewhere, but if there's an interesting or creative way to bring Nightmare back, then would say go for it.
to challenge you it’s 
