Honda EU3000is - Issues with Choke stuck in CLOSED - Spring tension?

Working on a Honda EU3000is for my mother-in-law, and what I'm seeing is that if I pull the Choke knob to the CLOSED position, the choke cable will correctly pull on the choke control and close the choke...
 
If I then start the generator and push the Choke knob in, to the OPEN position, the cable slides through the holder, but the control plate itself remains stuck in the CLOSED position, which obviously makes the generator not run correctly... if I stick my finger in there and nudge the control to the OPEN state, the generator runs beautifully...
 
Attaching pictures so you can see what it looks like when I Pull/Push the knob, as well as what it SHOULD look like when I push the knob (but have to manually set it to currently).
 
I've sprayed some WD40 around all of the moving parts in case it was just stuck, but it doesn't seem to have done much. Not sure if the spring on the throttle cable just doesn't have the push it needs to slide the part back into place, or if there's something I'm missing that's out of view which might be over tightened. Any help & suggestions are appreciated!

Thanks SRTsFZ6,
 
You're correct that mine doesn't sit in the recess - I'd actually seen a video where they were showing that for this model, that's the correct setup, and there's a common failure where if the cable end accidentally gets placed in the recess, it'll pop out of the holder entirely when the choke is pushed in (essentially, the tapered end of the spring goes in the recess, so that when it pushes back into the holder, it stays in place and doesn't slip up and out).
 
That said, I'm certainly down for giving it a try, just on the chance that it ends up working! It's easy enough to try, and easy enough to swap back if it fails.

I didn't see anywhere to mount a return spring, nor did I see one on the parts list I was looking at, but I'd had the same thought of possibly trying to rig something up as a last ditch if nothing else ends up working (just trying to avoid it, as I'd either have to get the perfect spring tension to balance the existing spring, or manually hold the choke closed while it warmed up). 

Good point on including the Serial # in the post - if it helps, it's EZGF-1522594

Also, with the cable un-hooked, 
 
  - Does the choke lever have any "spring action" (open/close by use of a light internal spring)?
  -Does the cable itself have any binding (disconnected) at all?