I'll try to take some pics looking down the top opening in the transmission in the next week or so. The old transmission was left about 75 miles north of my house where the work was done. I did notice that there is a long slot in a metal plate visible when looking down the shifter hole. On the trans that came out of the car the slot had about a 1/8 wide by 3/4" long pac man bite taken out of one side.

The trans that went in did not have any wear in the slot. It also had a tremendously nice brass pivot (thanks Jim Morris). The shift selector now lines up with 3-4 as you described. There is also very little side to side play in the selector lever when gears are engaged.

The reason I first asked about whether the selector lever might be the issue is because of:
a. wear in the old transmission slot.
b. great condition of the new transmission brass pivot.

It may be that George is correct and this is a clutch issue. I'd be surprised if both of these transmissions had the exact same issue with synchronizers. It really does shift (poorly) almost exactly the same between the two trannies. The only thing that appears to be left is selector or clutch.

Joe M in WV