How do you make gradual support work?

[kfsone 5]

I've never found any way to get gradual support to build viable support, it never graduates between the original "lazy" support and the next layer up:

 

 

Might produce something like this: I expected that the individual lines of support would be further apart, but instead it just seemed to produce half the support, leaving a whole half of each subsequent tier floating in thin air: (Yes, I've tried different patterns, concentric is where it is easiest to see when you are controlling the camera view)

 

 

 

 

Anyway, this suggests to me I'm doing it wrong?