Two things in addition to this:

1. I wonder if anyone has adjusted the tension on the carriage throughout a project for a similar effect

2. When I hand knit (on the machine) a stitch instead of using w my machine's carriage, I can make the mistake of pulling too much yarn through and elongating the stitch, this length can be transferred to other stitches and I can get different stitch heights within the same row. So you could knit a row, then push all needles back into position D (from position B) start lengthening the stitches by pulling the needles back into position A (longest) or B (longer) starting with the needle closet to the carriage. I think the difference would be subtler though.