I think that if you use a GW scheme your army tends to only get a glance, even if it is top notch painting it will still only be thought of as an army list. People will not really study it (well some of us still will that love the hobby deep enough to care about the small details).
Conversions can work, but there are bad conversions that stand out (awkward poses because of forced change attempts) and there are very good ones that you may not notice at all because they blend right into the army and don't look out of place. (again many of us on here would still spot it cause we love it).
I think a uniform for good warriors that is not in a standard scheme or has a detail that is not GW / film inspired (like a jewel, a device/emblem design on all). As you see in the DMS elves example you have a different scheme from GW and you have Jewels, even if this was not painted well it would stand out.
With my Mordor orc army, there is no uniform, ridiculous amounts of converting, and I try to hold a high standard...what unifies it is the chaos of it all, and that they all look like the same breed ofhigh quality mess.
I did try to make each orc a character, easily picked out in a line up of hoodlums, so that helps the cause there. With my morannon orcs, I used the GW scheme and converted 36/48 so far, but the army could easily be passed by even with so many conversions. I still have many orcs and morannons to do and will still convert, but I do plan to make a very cohesive (same color scheme) mordor orc warband and I plan to make an alternate morannon scheme as well, so when I get to those in a few years time perhaps I will know better how to respond to this topic.
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), I think red and gold Easterlings are a good example of this.