Not too bad. If you'd heated your dye to 130-140° F you probably would have gotten better color out of those lighter ones (the ones that look like they did get some ano layer).
I think your two wire idea deserves some more experimentation - you might be able to get that to work better. You could try doing shorter strings, or put a spacer every x number of rings to hold it apart.
I think what I'd try, since you have a gap on each of the rings, is to cut a piece of alum sheet, maybe .032 thickness, and slide the rings onto an edge - any that fit loose, squeeze them together some more and refit.
To know the surface area of the ring, we need to know the ring's diameter (in order to calculate the length) - you listed the wire diameter, but not the ring diameter. If you were to straighten one of those rings out, it's a cylinder. You could either straighten one out perfectly straight and measure it, or use the diameter from center to center of the wire to calculate the circumference, which becomes your length, or height of the cylinder. So if you measure the diameter from outside to outside, subtract one wire diameter to get center-to-center. Here's a link to a bunch of surface area formulas:
http://www.math.com/tables/geometry/surfareas.htm
Use the formula for cylinders. If you try my idea of sliding the rings onto an edge of sheet aluminum, don't count the surface area of the two ends since they're not exposed and won't be anodizing. But don't forget the surface area of the sheet.
Looks like you're not too far from total success, congrats and good luck!