I love the simple solutions! Since my issue came on suddenly, I was thinking that it was probably on the bucking bar side of the motor, maybe the ball bearing crapped out or the bucking bar took a dive. Everything looked fine, plenty of grease and very little wear on the bucking bar and clutch actuator arm.
So I got to thinking, what would make the bucking bar move inwards but still be tight? On a whim I used the stock spark plug wrench to check if the nut holding the bucking bar was tight, and sure enough it had backed off a few threads! So snugged that nut up tight and everything is back to normal! That is one of those nuts that I did not loctite, so there ya go...