It's the "full" end reading you need to look at most closely, the gauge is less sensitive to the lower end. I believe this is why the rheostats in the senders are made with the resistance wires further apart at the higher end.
I've been playing with gauges a lot recently (it's sad I know) and I've found the internal resistance of the E-body gauges is only between about 12 and 17 ohms. As the resistance of the sender approaches that of the gauge the gauge becomes very sensitive to it. A difference of a few ohms at the "full" end of the sender will make a big difference on the gauge.
The senders all seem to be designed to drop close to 10 ohms for full scale, which means they actually overtake (undertake ?) the gauges in terms of resistance.
Don't know if that helps but there it is.