It might be because the extra information is shown if it has already been read by tree. e.g. If you manually expand a tree branch (or if the "expand selected" option expanded the branch, or if it was auto-expanded before "no content population" was selected), then that branch will always be fully expanded if it is expanded at all.
(The intent of the "no content population" is to avoid reading the folders on very slow drives, so it still shows them if it already has them. That it also lets you have a tree with minimal extra folders is more of a side-effect.)
You might want to create a button which runs this command:
@toggle:disable
Set TREE=Toggle
Set TREE=Toggle
That will turn the tree off and then immediately back on, causing it to forget any cached information and re-build itself with just the direct path to your current location. Essentially, it is a "clear extra folders from tree" button, as long as "no content population" is on.