I went for a short 50mi ride and all is well. The clutch feels different, better. Whenever I pulled the lever even with the bike off before I could hear some mechanical action going on with the drum and I could definitely hear it with the bike running in neutral. Now when I pull the lever it's so quiet and smooth. I thoroughly bled the thing using up 2/3s of a bottle of dot4 and my fluid never looked so clean. All this was done with 1477mi on he odometer. The video I posted with the loose plate might not mean anything as I had already pulled the release plate off to investigate and after that there is no way to get the innermost plates to seat properly without pulling everything out.
For those who are into measurbating I'll get around to checking the flatness/thickness of the old plates eventually but I need to nerd out on my PC for a while.