If you are willing to buy a $350 hatchling pastel from NERD, you can get an amazing yearling maybe older for a quality pastel that you can visually see getting nice and bright from many breeders, especially at shows. The NERD line has been passed to tons of breeders. I don't believe you need to only go through them to get a great colored pastel.

You can probably even find a yellowbelly pastel for $350 which IMO almost always have amazing dark blacks and bright yellows. I don't think I could ever order a normal pastel online, I would need to see it in person to judge it.