It seems to me then that the application palette is probably not what you need. Perhaps something like this would be useful..? Here’s a macro that lists, in upper case as you specified, the currently running (foreground) applications in a window.
Thank you so much for that! Where there is a will, there seems to always be a way with Keyboard Maestro, but I never in a zillion years would have been able to figure that one out. Thanks again!