Sean, I am sorry you went through the pain I did with the installation. I have probably sanded the ridges down at least 5 times to get the right ease glide with the control knob. Since I paddle in saltwater, I discovered that additional resistance to lowering the skeg occurred about half way through my trip due to build up of salt or grit. So I gentle sanded down the ridges further for additional clearance. It looks like the main skeg tension is control by these ridges. Currently have taken several trips with no problems.

I have a theory on the problem of high tension on the skeg blade: I noticed before installation that the skeg box was kinda of flimsy and the opening slot looked concave. This this is mind I left the skeg blade installed during the installation of the box. I used blue tape to totally seal the opening.
So maybe the problem is a production problem with too thin skeg box walls. Or it could be during the epoxy and fiberglassing the skeg box gets pinch inward. Either way it is an ease fix once you understand the problem.