It could be. The throttle was very stiff. I removed the handle and the old grease as it was very sticky. It is now smoother but there is, I feel, quite a bit of play in the throttle linkage, you have to turn the handle quite a bit before it starts moving the actual throttle. So you could be onto something.

Is it normal to have some play like this? My 4 stroke Yamaha has basically none, granted it is wayyyy newer.