Listing with 100+ variations switched from color swatches to a pulldown

The listing started with 18 variations and was using color swatches with pricing underneath. It looked great. Easy to see what you were getting and easy to browse what we were offering.

Added inventory to the rest of the variations and it’s now a pulldown to switch between colors. It’s much less user friendly this way. You can’t really see the color you are curious about until you select it. I want the swatches back:

What is the maximum number of variations you can have on a listing before it changes like this? I might be willing to split the item into 2 listings if it will display with color swatches instead of the pulldown.

If there is a maximum number of variations before the page changes to a pulldown, as I suspect is the issue here, is there any way to appeal the default page style?

Thanks to anyone who knows anything that can help me get answers 🙂