I live in California as well (SoCal) and get equally as annoyed with the traffic light problem. I always try to approach a turn lane I'm not familiar with slowly, so I can try to spot the magnetic strips in the lane and then try to land directly on them. If it's the daytime (or busy), I'll wait a full cycle of the signal to see if I can't catch a turn arrow - then if I can't, I just wait until it's safe to turn left on green (like a light without an arrow) and make a safe left turn. I do a quick LEO check before hand while waiting for the light to go through its first complete cycle.
I mean, C'MON! If I were to get pulled over for doing this - I would expect any reasonable officer to understand and if they decided to not believe me, then I'd tell the same thing to the judge and use the advice in your message about the traffic engineer letter regarding sensitivity of the strips.
I mean, this isn't like your trying to fight a 40MPH over the limit speeding ticket, or trying to justify that 3 gear wheelie you just pulled, while smokin' down PCH... This is common sense to me and I believe this is SORT OF covered in the "rules of the road" traffic code stuff - when you're at a faulty light, treat it as a stop sign and proceed when it is safe to do so... something like that.
just my 2c