Q:

graphviz html table nodes centered instead of same rank

In this sample graph, I'd like the two nodes (A and B in the source) to start at the same y position. In particular, I'd like the blue header and the red header to be at the same rank, or y position --- ideally as close to the top of the image frame as possible, and not at all the behavior it currently elicits.

In other words, I want the red header to be exactly where the blue header is, in terms of its y position, but as it stands currently, it seems like all new nodes using html labels appear centered with respect to the largest html label node.
Here is another picture to illustrate what I mean:

Ideally, as more nodes are added with similar html label structure, they move from left to right, and start at the same y position as all the other nodes/headers.
Unfortunately, I've tried many variations of rank but I cannot seem to do this using rank (or anything else).  
Records are not an acceptable solution; the number of rows is extremely large in the graphs I'm generating, and records with rows > 400 seem to fail to generate for me with a parse error.
Please provide a solution which generates something very similar to the good graph example image (2nd image), in terms of something like the following graphviz source (used to generate the bad image with dot -O -Tpng <filename.gv>):
digraph example {

node [shape=plaintext]
rankdir=TB

A [label=<
  <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLBORDER="1" CELLSPACING="0">
   <TR>
    <TD BGCOLOR="lightblue">HEADER</TD>
   </TR>
   <TR>
    <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
   </TR>

   <TR>
    <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
   </TR>

   <TR>
    <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
   </TR>

   <TR>
    <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
   </TR>

   <TR>
    <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
   </TR>

   <TR>
    <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
   </TR>

   <TR>
    <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
   </TR>

   <TR>
    <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
   </TR>

   <TR>
    <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
   </TR>

   <TR>
    <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
   </TR>

   <TR>
    <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
   </TR>

   <TR>
    <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
   </TR>

   <TR>
    <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
   </TR>

   <TR>
    <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
   </TR>

   <TR>
    <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
   </TR>

   <TR>
    <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
   </TR>

   <TR>
    <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
   </TR>

   <TR>
    <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
   </TR>

   <TR>
    <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
   </TR>

   <TR>
    <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
   </TR>

   <TR>
    <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
   </TR>

   <TR>
    <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
   </TR>

   <TR>
    <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
   </TR>

   <TR>
    <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
   </TR>

   <TR>
    <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
   </TR>

   <TR>
    <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
   </TR>

   <TR>
    <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
   </TR>

   <TR>
    <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
   </TR>

   <TR>
    <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
   </TR>

   <TR>
    <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
   </TR>

   <TR>
    <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
   </TR>

   <TR>
    <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
   </TR>

  </TABLE>
>];

B [
label=<
  <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLBORDER="1" CELLSPACING="0">
   <TR PORT="header">
    <TD BGCOLOR="#d23939" COLSPAN="2">HEADER</TD>
   </TR>
   <TR>
    <TD BGCOLOR="#ff6363">ONE</TD><TD BGCOLOR="#ff6363">TWO</TD>
   </TR>
   <TR>
    <TD PORT="1">1</TD><TD>2</TD>
   </TR>
   <TR>
    <TD PORT="3">3</TD><TD>4</TD>
   </TR>
  </TABLE>
>];

}

A:

This is a typical example for rankdir=LR. Helper nodes and edges are invisible
digraph example {
    rankdir=LR
    node [shape=plaintext]

    0, 1, 2, 3 [style=invis]
    0->1->2->3 [style=invis]
    { rank=same; 0->A [style=invis]}
    { rank=same; 1->B [style=invis]}

    A [label=<
      <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLBORDER="1" CELLSPACING="0">
       <TR>
        <TD BGCOLOR="lightblue">HEADER</TD>
       </TR>
       <TR>
        <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
       </TR>
       <TR>
        <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
       </TR>
       <TR>
        <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
       </TR>
       <TR>
        <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
       </TR>
       <TR>
        <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
       </TR>
       <TR>
        <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
       </TR>
       <TR>
        <TD ALIGN="LEFT">TEST</TD>
       </TR>
      </TABLE>
    >];

    B [label=<
      <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLBORDER="1" CELLSPACING="0">
       <TR PORT="header">
        <TD BGCOLOR="#d23939" COLSPAN="2">HEADER</TD>
       </TR>
       <TR>
        <TD BGCOLOR="#ff6363">ONE</TD><TD BGCOLOR="#ff6363">TWO</TD>
       </TR>
       <TR>
        <TD PORT="1">1</TD><TD>2</TD>
       </TR>
       <TR>
        <TD PORT="3">3</TD><TD>4</TD>
       </TR>
      </TABLE>
    >];
}

