I believe youre correct. I tried the ranger (love that controller but) using it on the stock retron fw - while it works, it feels more like digital increments rather than a smooth analog movement. (I have not tried using my paddles on stock fw yet to test if it's the same story)
Using the 2600dapter 2 however, with both the ranger paddle and orginal paddles, you get a much smoother and true experience.
While it's sad developers have not had time to fix these bugs, I certainly can understand as life "gets in the way".
Here's my setup. I really would have hoped for an analogue 7800 (with 2600 compat) I don't think that will ever happen so the retron will be the next best thing.
If interested, I think atari is licensing a new plug n play called the gameststion pro or plus. There's rumors now that they went back to the drawing board to include paddle controls on it if thats your thing.
But as you can see I prefer using cartridges.