It's likely that when he was trying to put out the hit, as it appeared, he knew he was talking to the guy who was blackmailing him (who didn't know that he knew that) and he was trying to get him to believe that he was willing to kill to end the blackmailing. So he was never actually planning on killing anyone.

That is not likely at all. There is literally no evidence supporting that. It is simply an explanation that allows Ross's supporters to explain away the facts. The preponderance of evidence is that Ross is OK with murder.

Maybe I want to believe too much.

Regardless, I would say that there's a big difference between murdering someone who is blackmailing you and other kinds of murder, to the point that I wouldn't expect psychopathy from someone who was doing the former.