Time Machine Backups Purpled Out

Question

I have 3 sections of backup all on the same external disk. I see the dates and have no access to older backups. One was a restore of the drive that Apple support promised I would be able to go back and get files and apps in the old install and bring over to the new restored drive. This was untrue. That is the first purpled out batch of backups.
The second is from being on location with no back ups for couple of months. I just hooked up to my external drive and it now has all back ups purple.
So, now I only have access to the last two days of back ups. I have seen many posts say you have to click on the file you want restored and then it will access the later backups. This makes no sense. It only restores that dates version. What I want are apps and files from previous back ups. To do that you have to click on that date.
Lastely, and more importantly Apple said I could do a full restore from a back up and go back to an earlier version OSX. Hence, go back to Lion, or Mountain Lion. I dont see that availabe either.
Whats up?
At this point I am fed up with time machine. Is there an easy solution to this or do I have to buy a third party backup?

Answer 1

What I have found out since posting this post.
I went to time machine preferences and pressed select disk and reselected my seagate drive. Half of my back ups that were dull purple are now bright purple and I can access those files. The ones earlier I cannot.
I back up to an external drive, a seagate backup drive. I went through the finder and drilled down to the back up folder. Backups.backupdb. It has folders set up by date for my backups. The oldest date is the first bright purple time machine tab. I have no files before that. It somehow recognizes that I did back ups before that first file and cannot find them, hence the dull purple tabs. Where were they saving too? I surely hope it was not the mac hd.