Oh what a day...

The TOB should have way more travel than that. You don't need it to contact the pressure plate while fully compressed. I think when I measure my TOB I had something like 1.5" total travel from fully compressed to fully extended. You should just have to live in this range. That would mean that even if you didn't eat up 0.6" with spacers you should have nearly 7/8" of travel left in the TOB. Shimming it just allows you to use more travel if needed. I would make sure you're actually getting "1:1" pedal to throwout movement. Sounds like you might have air or something in the system that's keeping it from working right.