Levels and timing seem OK, it's just a drastic difference in the sonic dynamics of the speakers.Well, the main issue is, it shouldn't make a huge difference in the overall audio and impact to turn on/off the center speaker. Something isn't right.
I had an inspiration this morning. If the Klipsch R-52C leaves me wanting, I think I can integrate an RP-8000f tower.
My original plan was to build 4 Ikea Lack racks and bought materials sufficient for that project. After building 3 of them I decided that was enough and stopped there. I thought it more symmetrical having the center speaker on the middle rack.
Now that that plan has hit a snag, I could go ahead and build the 4th rack and put an RP-8000F in the middle with 2 on each side, satisfying my OCD. One small issue being the racks are 42" high and the RP-8000F is 43". Not ideal, but not the end of the world.