Take a close look at the machining around the star. I had a recent manufacture 686+ about a year ago, and the machining of the star was abysmally bad... which left it with the kind of trigger you describe as the hand needed to grind its way through all the **** on every trigger pull.

I ended up trading it off before fixing it, but a trip to the Mother Ship would probably have been the best solution. It would have been expensive to have a good gunsmith clean it up.