Okay, did a lot of tinkering.
Banding and the number of "lights" in the setup seem to be intertwined.
More lights = more bands, but they're much smaller and blend together halfway decently. I had it set to 4, and had three huge bands (including the top layer), and really only the top layer (which got smaller as one climbed) didn't look like some sort of weird colored filter. At 20 one can see flak bursts reasonably well and use them to find the Gothas...and when one gets close enough the Germans will flash these lights at you to help zero in on them.
A-ha, very sensible to have more lights in the night, and good to know that so it also helps the night sky