Remarks
Expanding the "palette.png" file to add more palettes, without making the appropriate changes to the colour mapping shaders, will result in incorrect colours and palettes being displayed.
Transparency/alpha is not read from the palette, so saving semi-transparent pixels will simply result in the same colour being used in-game, but with the alpha being set to full - removing the transparency. Fully transparent pixels will either be black or white, depending on how the paint program being used to modify the palette handles saving transparency.
The map screen will make use of colours from the currently loaded area palette to tint the different icons, graphics, etc. As will other graphical elements, such as the tumor counter, NPC text boxes, etc.