You know that is how many sports turn into new plants. Anyone can take a sport off a plant (TC labs 'select out' plants all the time that they see different characteristics in, and propagate those plants separately, to see if they can get the new characteristic to stick so to speak and be stable). If they can achieve stability over generations they will often patent and market the plant as a cultivar. Almost all of the Alocasia reginula on the market today are from a seedling selected out by Agristarts and grown under the name 'Black Velvet'. The species plant is only available in the wild, at botanical gardens in some places, and in the private collections of people who were growing this plant prior to it being produced by TC labs. If a backyard gardener finds a sport and is able to do the same thing through vegetative propagation, that person can pay the fee to register it as a cultivar and have rights to it. If they choose to they can patent it, or, they can sell it to a TC lab and that lab will patent it mass produce it and market it and sell it. The original grower gets a royalty (supposedly) on every single unit of plant sold. But I know some professional ginger growers who have done this and not been paid what they are supposed to be paid.
Yes, reversion is unfortunately always a threat. A lot of variegation is caused by a spontaneous genetic mutation. And just as a plant can express the mutation, the mutation can also be transient.
I did a researched thread on variegation on the Variegated Plants forum titled What is Variegation that explains the different types of chimeric variegation. Whether the mutation sticks depends on how many cellular layers it affects. I have a friend who works as an aroid curator at a botanical garden, and he is fond of saying, 'Reversion is only a mutation away' and it is very true. I had a variegated Monstera that I bought years ago at Home Depot...it was a chance find, in a large batch of all green plants. No one had noticed that' this one is different'. Mainly because the variegation was not very strong and only on a few leaves. It reverted. I bought a variegated Anthurium vittarifolium...it reverted. Variegated ALocasia macrorhizza can be highly variable, you can have all green offsets come off of very highly variegated parent plants.
