Don,
The problem you're possibly having is due to the lack of a huge amount of
colors available for 8-bit flics, and that you're using too many colors to
represent the scene accurately. If this is the case, it should improve if
you use a more monochromatic set of colors in your scene. Note also that
2.01/2.01A use a much more accurate 8-bit color reduction scheme than 2.00.
If this isn't the case, I'd have to see the actual .3ds file to tell you
exactly what's going on with it.
The reason why you've got 5 X's at the bottom of the AA Pro color palette
is because AAP TEMPORARILY puts its menu colors in those five slots when
you're using the AAP menus if it can't find enough colors in the current
palette to use. When you get rid of the menus, however, those color
registers are re-stuffed with the correct colors.
– G