Balancer - set port rate

I have discovered that if I connect a lift directly to a balancer, it tends to step on the priority settings of the balancer. The reason seems to be that the lift has a much higher rate than any conveyor belt; if I connect a lift to a balancer with a belt, (even of length 1) then this problem goes away. The problem with that is that then the lift / balancer combination takes up even more space.
I'd like to be able to set the rate of an input / output port of a balancer; I'd like to be able to set it to match the rate of tiers of belts. This would allow me to connect these without taking up an unreasonable amount of space.