@PJF thank you for this! I didn’t realize that scenes don’t trigger from the aux button (I thought that the aux paddle up/down event was detected by the smart switch and in turn triggered the scene). I guess I was stuck on scenes being triggered from the aux paddles b/c as I mentioned this seemed to work in ST. Possibly the ST device handler was doing some voodoo underneath. Anyway, I then considered your service yaml to detect brightness state change. Since I am only on day 3 of my HA adventure I haven’t gotten to services yet 
but it did prompt me to look at state changes in an automation. I noticed that my automation (say my lights on automation) would trigger on any state change in brightness (I have my ramp rates on my black series switch set to ramp up/down to 255/0 instantly). I couldn’t add a condition or trigger that detected brightness level at 255 or 0 - I am assuming that should work and I’m not understanding how to do it properly. This was progress though.
After just really what amounted to trying different types of triggers, I noticed that the “Light On” and “Light Off” triggers actually worked. I thought these wouldn’t work in smart bulb mode enabled or local relay disabled. Seems like those events are still registered and I can trigger on them. So it turns out it’s actually simple to do (or one of those $1 to hit the nail and $4999 to know how to hit the nail things…).
So now my black series dimmer switch and the accompanying GE AUX switch turns on/off my WIZ smart lights very nicely and it’s fairly quick too.
Thank You guys for sticking with me through this - 18 short hours later with the communities help, I got it to work
(and I don’t have to swap these black series dimmers out!). Reed at Smart Home Solver (youtube) was absolutely right about HA - the emotional swing with HA is real - very big Highs and very deep Lows lol).
Much appreciated!