There are a few areas of slop in the stock shifter.
Image stolen from renntech, I believe the owner is Tool Pants. I have used this before and not credited him, so my apologies to Tool Pants.
First, the factory fore/aft bushings (on the left and right sides of the pic) will develop a bit of slop as they wear. This allows the shifter to slide fore/aft a slight bit. Second, the metal lever develops slop in the plastic housing (the big piece behind the red circle). This gives a bit of side to side slop. Third, the plastic piece that is circled is not a perfect fit into the next higher assembly, the "gate" select lever. Fourth, the gate select lever uses a plastic pivot, which definitely wears over time.
I think the majority of the slop comes from that fourth thing (not shown in the pic). At least, it does on my car. Over the winter while the car is resting I would like to disassemble the console (AGAIN), drill out the plastic pivot, and use a bearing or bushing to improve that pivot. I think that'll help my (low mileage) shifter quite a bit.
Still, there is no getting around the fact that the shifter is controlled by a pair of really long cables going to the back end of the car. Porsches have never been known for their accurate, slop-free shifters.
