So, maybe take some time and think about this in another way. It may help when you come back to this question again. Think of it as a thought exercise.
When teaching someone to write a novel... you don't just teach them the dictionary. Adding a thesaurus doesn't help much either. You need to teach them how to make sentences, then how to make paragraphs, then essays, short stories... You need to talk about tense and voice and .... You need to teach them the higher concepts. Now, to mix metaphors... you can't jump in and teach them advanced calculus, without having gone through basic math, algebra, geometry and trig. The idea is that the concepts build on each other and leaves the students in a place where he can continue learning and exploring and even coming up with new things based on a solid understanding.
I'll use Danzan Ryu as an example. The techniques we have are grouped into lists or boards. The first two that a beginner starts with, are rolls and falls and the Yawara list. Rolls and falls are because you are going to get thrown, a lot. Yawara looks like a collection of simple escapes from simple grabs and some standing joint locks. However, there are some concepts here. It is usually referred to a "Gentleness." Or you could say you are not going against the other guys forces, you are going around his force, finding the weakness and even adding to his force to get what you want. The next board looks like a bunch of throws. However, this list is about structure and balance. You have to learn what it take to stay on balance, with good structure while you move 200 pound weights around. You have to learn how to off balance the other guy, how to break his structure all while maintaining yours. Do that right, and the throws are easy, and can be done slowly. The student should start to see that the Yawara stuff he was doing, can lead to and set up the throws he is now doing. He can see that the off balancing he is learning for his throws, can be used to make his Yawara techniques much more effective. The next board has most of our ground work and submissions. However, the list is about teaching constriction. How to constrict your opponents movement. Again the simple lessons you learned about balance and structure apply as do the lessons about blending with and going around force, not directly against it. Now we get to the brown belt list, which has a bunch of combinations. Instead of throwing the guy, pinning the guy and then going for the submission... you throw the guy and get the submission while he is in the air, so that the result of him falling applies the submission or break. However, this list is more about your mental state, that being determination. To do these safely, you need the throw to be perfect and then the submission to be perfect. The thing is that you never get a perfect throw... which means you need to learn to do what needs to be done, to adjust. You need to be determined to make it work and make it right, otherwise your partner or you can be severely injured. You need to learn to finish what you start. The next list, again is more about the mental state. This time, the idea is that the final outcome has already been determined, by you. The other guy attacks, and you get him in a specific hold or finish. With new black belts, this looks very much pre-arranged... because it is. Then you start going harder and faster... when you screw up, you need to continue, until you get the finish you were supposed to get. This leads to all kinds of fun training... the better you get, the more people mess with you and try to stop you. Which means you need to learn to flow and go with whatever happens, while advancing towards your goal. The best way to get better at this, is to go back and study Yawara, throws, constrictions, combinations... In fact, when you then go back to the beginning.... you see a ton of things you never saw before, things you missed.
The whole point of this training is to create a system. You can always go back and learn more, because the more you learn in one area, will help you see more in another. Thats because the system is connected, the concepts build on and support each other. Its not just a random collection of neat things I can do. At this point, the student can go collect different techniques from different styles... he has a system to plug them into. These "new" techniques from other systems actually become other ways to look at concepts. You can then apply that to all your danzan ryu techniques... which should then include new technique you just learned. Its not danzan ryu because I can find the technique on a list somewhere. Its danzan ryu because I understand how to apply it, in accordance with the concepts and principles of danzan ryu.
So, back to your question. First think about what are the core principles and concepts that you want your students to get. Arrange them in an order, so that one helps prepare the student for the next. Now that you have your higher level concepts arranged, now you can pick out the forms and techniques and such to use to express those concepts. Now you have a set of concepts, with and arranged order... maybe some or all of the concepts are subdivided. These now become the different levels in your system. Maybe you do belts per concept and stripes per sub concept. Or belt colors fr every group... it really doesn't matter. Maybe look at the system you are learning and look at how things are grouped. The student learns these basic things, these self defense things and this form for one rank... why? What is the connection? What is the concept? How do these build on what you learned the rank before? How to they help you for the rank following? What could you investigate further in this rank, after having been promoted much higher.... how does what you learned at black belt help you understand more what you learned at green?
Hopefully, it helps to look at it from that perspective.
