OH my groovy new friend, it worked!
I set the font back to Bravura, changed it’s size back to something normal, and chose 5 for the scaling - and now the time sigs look how I would like them, are placed correctly in the score, and the unusual bar spacing has gone away. So very thankful!
I’ve spent so much time just trying to get the score setup how I want, and I’m 99% there. I’m sure I’ll be spending lots of time here humoring you all with my remedial skills and questions!