Any ideas to prevent this or simple mods (such as the rocket anti-bounce out mod w/ mini post that costs like $3. I was thinking maybe a miniature "speed bump" that would keep it from camping up there.

I've played on tons of machines over the years including one I acquired in early January (Merry Christmas to me!)
and the ball seems to get stuck quite often on the hitchhiker shot on most of them...

usually off the upper right flipper (generally rocket kicker gets the ball around and back into the pop bumpers no problem).

Assuming ball is stuck at the top of this "hairpin shaped" loop...It can be dislodged with hard vertical nudges but usually gets a tilt warning and sometimes a tilt (Murphy's Law suggests it's almost always when flirting with 1B+ score haha).

Thanks for any ideas and happy pinballing!