Player Servers have evolved to include a variety of different plugins to create functional and fun servers, but what it lacks are plugins that let you edit an item (attributes, lore, name, etc.). While anvils work fine for renaming, it makes items lack color and look bland, and there is no way to make custom items that have special attributes (such as unbreakability, hide enchants, etc.) or make anything have custom colors. Color codes only work in chat, but don't work for renaming, signs, or books.
My suggestion for Player Servers is to add some sort of item editor plugin. My suggestions are Item Editor (IE), Epic Rename (ER), and Simple Rename (SR). Item Editor is versatile and lets you easily edit items, but is slightly harder to use due to having to go through many different GUI menus to edit an item but still gives you tons of control over how you define an item. Epic Rename and Simple Rename are both extremely similar, except having slightly different commands and permissions. Both are essentially just a plugin that lets you (via typing commands in chat) use color codes on not only items, but also in anvils and I also believe on signs and books as well, and let you change the name, lore, and other various attributes of an item (most important part of the plugins are naming and loring).
Overall, while color code support for items may be easy by using Skript or some other plugin to rename items, it is a hassle to go through that process and would be much easier using a plugin dedicated to customizing items.
(My suggestion is to add both Item Editor and Simple Rename, since both focus on different aspects and are both very versatile and useful)
Suggestion Idea and Concept by Noodlesticks
Links to Official Plugin Download Page
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Simple Rename (SR): https://dev.bukkit.org/projects/simple-rename
Epic Rename (ER): https://www.spigotmc.org/resources/epicrename.4341/
Item Editor (IE): https://www.spigotmc.org/resources/item-editor.27637/
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I could not find a bukkit page for Epic Rename or Item Editor; if one exists please notify me.