Your reasoning about compressing T sounds like some sleight of hand. I think the trick happens when you unpack the program. That really shouldn't allow you to transfer complexity between the two.

Any pair (U, V) still has to refer to specific point, and you shouldn't have any special expectations that things happening on step one, 3^^3 or on any other point are somehow more likely than others. Unpacking shouldn't change that, and so, you shouldn't be able to transfer complexity of the program to the step count.