Kinda sounds familiar. If I recall correctly, I basically backed out the detents so that they gave very very little resistance while I adjusted the cables for full throw. The only thing that sucked about doing it that way was the tendency for the shift rails to move/wander into "locked" position so that I could not shift at all (you can't have the front input in "low" while the rear is in "high").
I also remember almost ditching the 203/205 in favor of an atlas because it was so much of a pain in the ass to get adjusted properly.