Hi Tim
Sounds pretty right to me. Like you, I'm in a light-polluted area (Melbourne), and have a small 4.5 inch reflector, and even with this tiddler can make out various nebulae. Yep, they are a grey color and very dim + low contrast - nothing like the photos are they
, but that's the limitations of our eyesight.....
There's 3 or 4 nebbies I can see in the Sagittarius/Scorpius area - and being almost overhead at present negates a bit of the light pollution; if you're up pretty late, take a look at Orion- that's got some detail, and seems to me to have a slight greenish color. Then there are the stars embedded within it - you can see how good your eyes/scope is by comparing what you can see to a star chart like stellarium.
Clouded over here for now, and probably so for 3 nights more.....
cheers John