The middle tier between Mode A's hard pins and --rebrand. It exists because the median redesign candidate is a site whose brand is right but whose execution of that brand is part of the problem — a generic system body face, a palette whose only accent fails contrast on half its surfaces. Strict Mode A reproduces those weaknesses; rebrand throws away the brand. Mode A+ authorizes bounded upgrades, each gated on evidence:

Same-classification type upgrade. When the improvements list (Phase 2.5) names the captured body or system face as a weakness with evidence (illegibility at captured sizes, a generic system stack where the brand deserves a voice, missing weights/axes the layout needs), the body face may be upgraded to a same-classification, deliverable face (humanist sans → humanist sans; grotesque → grotesque). The display face stays pinned — it carries the brand's recognition.
Single-role palette recolor. When a specific captured color fails contrast or hierarchy as evidenced (computed ratio cited, or a T-color-imbalance tension), that one role may be re-derived (deepened, re-weighted) while every other role stays pinned. New hues from outside the captured family remain forbidden.

Contract: each refinement is recorded in DESIGN.json.extensions.divergence.brand_adjacent_refinements[] as { kind, captured, replacement, evidence, improvementsItem } — an inversion-style audit entry citing the improvements-list item that authorizes it. No evidence citation → no refinement. Mode A+ never activates by default: it requires the qualifying improvements-list item, and the plan surfaces each refinement explicitly ("body face upgraded Arial → Hanken Grotesk per improvements #3; display face pinned") so the user (or the hands-off record) sees exactly what moved. Refinements do not run through reference research — their justification is the captured weakness, not an external anchor.