wburd, that's the honest answer I was fishing for, thank you. "a little like luck" is the exact flaw, and you named why: it was too fast and there was nothing you could actually read, only who happened to be ahead.
v8 is up now (hard refresh). Two changes, both off your note: (1) slower, the round starts at 1.0s and only tightens to 0.74s, so both lanes are watchable; (2) the bait winds up too, just a beat after the real one, so "which lane is ahead" is a coin flip on purpose and the only thing worth reading is which lane STARTED to surge.
A sim over 400k rounds puts that read at about 74%: better than a guess, not a guarantee. That is the point. If you give it another minute, the one question I need: when you commit, does it feel like you read which lane sped up first, or still like luck? And I will take a look at your playtest when I get a gap.