It's a Pretty Pink, Baby Blue 3-Lamper!

Here's the latest incarnation of that Metalux Corp./Gibson Lighting 1X4 surface mount troffer. This fixture originally came from my school, along with another identical one I haven't done this to since it's lampholder brackets won't hold a third lamp. These are special to me since I remember working under these lights (many are still in use, these two were removed since there was some rennovations going on and the new purpose of that room dictated that it was over-lit.
When I first got it, it had (and has) a 2XF40T12 Advance .77 amp Kool-Koil ballast, which sometimes trips it's thermal protection, even with 40w lamps.
Awhile back I added the third set of sockets and lamp, but didn't have a ballast. Then, later on, I found a second Sears shoplight with a toasty-looking Universal Therm-O-Matic .8 amp ballast. When tried, it only ran one lamp at partial brightness. Some of you might remember a picture of me trying to get it to work. Anyway I did the shunted-series-RS-ballast trick (one lamp between the blue and red wires and capping off the yellows with wirenuts) and installed it as the ballast for the middle lamp in this fixture. It appears to run the lamp at full brightness, maybe even a little brighter than normal, and instant-starts every time I've fired it up so far. Originally Aaron (Alights) and myself were thinking the cap in the ballast was bad, but maybe the F34 I tested it with in an unheated garage didn't have a chance to warm up. So, now, I'm thinking maybe this DID work! It's brighter than the GE Chroma 50 lamps on the .77 amp Advance ballast on either side, but that's not surprising considering C50s aren't super bright.
Although this was a silly idea at first, It's now one of my favorite fixtures!
Lamps shown are GE Chroma 50s and a warm white Mainlighter.
What do you guys think?