I have kept just doing little bits and I have found the way to get much closer: Light groups and Comp. Put each light in its own light group. Render the image. Then, using Mix Nodes set to add, you can recreate the combined render. And this is where the magic happens. Rather than rendering every little change and adjustment, you change the color of each light in compositing; the strength(exposure), color, blending them together, etc. I want to thank BlenderBob for his Lighting in Compositing and Light Groups tutorials, all the things on his channel are great.
and here is the node group
It looks complex but it isn’t really.