Ok, just ordered 90 more RGB LEDs to do some more testing of the concepts. This time I am going to interface the RPi through a couple of Arduino UNOs. The diagram is as pictured:
This shows a bus structure in which the Raspberry Pi interfaces across the bus to the two Arduino UNOs and in turn, the Arduinos interface to the MCP23017s. I am hoping that this structure will resolve some of the timing issues that I was experiencing last year.