is it just the route sheet "compressing" the hills on the screen?
Typically, yes. Most of the basic profile graphs use a standard width of display, so for a shorter stage, things look flatter, and for a longer one, steeper.
I think that the "upgrade" / payment required version allows you to use a standard spacing for the heights, at least.
Otherwise, you can attempt some stretching and squishing of the graphic, to more or less get everything on a normalized x:y scale.
If you think a place might be steep, you may be able to zoom in, and pick another graph to display slope percentages.