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it struck me that I shouldn't be able to see any colors outside the triangle, but I do - what's up with that?
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its because the graph is all just a big, fat, stinking lie and noones got the guts to admit it. *spits on the floor*
actually, the graph is somewhat accurate for the triangle inside. Each corner is the proper 256 R or 256 G or 356 B. The center is (256, 256, 256) which is pure white in MS Paint's little color picker toy (a great thing to experiment with to learn about color*). Outside of the triangle, however, is where some artistic type got creative. Notice that colors outside the triangle seem kind of the same, just darker.
you're right, there's no way to show any colors outside of the triangle.
the 2nd-best bet is to perform a trick where the triangle itself doesn't actually use the monitor's purest red or brightest blue. You can approximate the relative relationships by remapping the colors so that the triangle is drawn with dull pastels and the outside uses more of the monitor's capabilities.
hence, you get a gamut graph that makes more sense.
in fact, similar forms of remapping are used by people to adjust photogoraphs in order to achieve maximum quality. however, parameters that give the best color fidelity also make the image, on average, more dull. That's a tradeoff they have to make, and unfortunately they don't usually please everyone.
*who said computers aren't educational? everyone, press WinKey+R and type mspaint (then enter). Then double-click one of the colored boxes at the bottom, followed by 'Define Custom Color!' Here, you can compare colors to their RGB compenents. Better yet, you get to pick colors out of the 3 alternate dimensions of Hue, Saturation, and Luminocity. (which are dumb words for color, intensity, and brigthness) Note there are many other 3-dimensional systems by which color can be specified (a famous one being YUV) but you can't play with them here.
in the color-picker edutaitional dialog box are evident the two fundamnetal problems of gamut (i'm telling you, this thing is deep):
1. the first row of the color-picker box doesn't really look anything like a rainbow
2. all colors wash out when you turn up their luminocity or look a bit the same when you turn it down.