Clutch problems

Went for a ride the other day and realized that my clutch is feeling funny. It seems to drag. When in gear and clutch lever pulled in all the way the bike tries to move a little (no full clutch disengagement), neutral is very hard to find, shifting is very difficult. After some miles on the road the problem sometimes goes away completely and clutch behaves normally again. Easy shifts, neutral is right there where it should be and easy to get to. I tried adjusting the clutch (under the derby cover) to no avail. I thought I had my primary case over-filled, so I drained a bit of fluid. No joy. So I did some research and realized that it's a common problem and lots of Sportster clutches go after 30K miles or even way before that. My bike now has around 43K miles. Apparently, the Sportster clutch consists of 8 friction plates, 6 steel plates and one plate that is called a "spring plate", which is two plates riveted together with brass rivets that have spring leaves pushing outwards. This plate is not the main clutch spring, but is there right in the center of the clutch stack to take up some slack between the plates when the clutch is disengaged. Apparently, the brass rivets eventually fail and the two spring plates come apart and jam the clutch making it difficult to disengage. Also, they can do some damage tot he clutch shell and neighboring friction disks. The configuration, according to my shop manual is this:

F-St-F-St-F-St-F-SP-F-St-F-St-F-St-F

where

F=friction plate
St=steel plate
SP=spring plate

I stopped riding the bike now until I've sorted it out. I need to pull the clutch pack to have a look. For this I need a clutch spring compression tool. Argh! If the spring plate is in deed the problem, the solution seems to be to either replace it with a new part ($40) or eliminate it from the clutch pack by replacing it with two steel plates and a friction plate, which according to the people who've done it, makes up the same stack height (very important for proper clutch operation). So the new configuration will look like this:

F-St-F-St-F-St-F- St-F-St -F-St-F-St-F-St-F

This increases friction surface area making the clutch grabbier (good? bad? doesn't matter? takes getting used) and apparently no other ill effect is caused by this modification. I can also get a whole new aftermarket clutch pack with spring plate elimination already implemented. This is around $150 or so. I will consider my options once I know exactly what the problem is.