Well, I couldn't keep myself from tinkering, and I ended up getting the spring switched out. Looks like there are two release points at the top (on the top left and right) and one on the bottom (in the center). I just swapped out the longer/heavier space bar spring with the spring on the pause switch. Much more natural to type on now. I sure do wish I had that fancy split space bar one though.
The next step will be getting the orange sticker off. I'm going to heat it up with a hairdryer to just make sure it doesn't make a mess.
EDIT-
Orange sticker off with no mess. This is a fun keyboard. The switches are remarkably similar to the new Kailh clickbar switches (bronze and box white). The biggest difference in the two is that the click on the hi-tek switches is a bit softer and there is hardly any bottoming out noise. So, overall, the hi-tek switches are quieter. The hi-tek switches are also have less wobble and benefit from some terrific thick PBT keycaps. It's almost like having a very clicky topre switch.
Thanks again for the recommendation. Love these old boards. And more great news is that unlike my AT101W, I can actually play overwatch on this keyboard. The AT101W doesn't allow you to press "E" at the same time as "W, A, S, or D" which is a dealbreaker for that game. The NMB board has no issues with gaming that I've found so far... other than it's huge and I have to play with my mouse out of comfortable range.