Let’s just say that the IF sweep response clearly shows why chroma was smearing. My oscilloscope has the bode plot mirrored horizontally. So the chroma marker is on the right hand side.
Below is the result of my first IF alignment. Note that the achieved gain is 10x more than the curve above. This took hours, and was very frustrating, just like my first time converging a delta gun.
I am going to take another pass at it on another day after I decompress from the stress. It is pretty close to matching the reference curve, but I am sure I can dial in the sound traps a bit better and improve the response shape. Then I will align the chroma bandpass, and finally I will align the RF end to end.