Also make sure the sprung arm on the kicker is oiled at the pivot and moving freely and has the correct spring, and has no binding crud between it and the other kicker arm, otherwise the kick will be too hard. And see if you have noticeable wear at the tip(s) on the kicker, which can get hammered and flattened out if the kicker has a megaton of miles on it. If you remove the card holder it’s easier to see if the ball is being launched too high or the kick is weak, etc.

The GTB design isn’t as ‘smart’ and is much more prone to having issues but once you get them (and what fires them) back up to spec they kick to the shooter reliably. The one in my Fast Draw never fails and gets the ball there quick and smooth every time. But yeah I’ve had many that needed fixin’ up where the ball was hitting the card holder.

Yup the bottom ends of the kicker are pretty bashed, I’ve been able to peen them to get closer to the original shape, ball may not be seated/centered in the kicker as it should be... kicking upward instead of forward, or to one side since the peening there is worse on one side than the other.
Whichever reel is doing false scoring, might just be a scoring playfield switch gapped to close.

On the other thread showing the heavy wear where the kicker pivots, maybe a short piece of steel tubing could be brazed or epoxied onto the bottom of the post to both negate the wear notches on the post and compensate for the enlarged hole, and take out the slop... enlarging the hole if needed to match the diameter of the tubing.