Poor idle and off-idle performance after distributor swap

On the distributor, there is clearly some peening/wear on the end where it inserts into the drive gear. I never noticed it before. I also compared it to the old distributor, the end was immaculate and had no wear. And on the current distributor (causing issues) the shaft is 0.020" shorter.

Is it possible this is one of those stacking tolerance situations, with a worn distributor shaft and oversized intermediate shaft? I am still curious what the normal amount of slop with new components is. The amount that the rotor is allowed to rotate (appears to be at least 5 degrees) back and forth in the slot in the intermediate shaft seems excessive. Also, wondering if it is ok that a bronze gear was used with a normal hydraulic flat tappet cam.
Should I just replace the I-shaft, they aren't terribly expensive.