Tuner,
Believe it or not, the small undercut on the bottom of the trigger is
one of the deviations from original that I like.
Glad to hear that from someone with experience.
And here's another question for you - do you think the texture of the trigger face makes a difference? My trigger had vertical serrations in it, until I took it to a polishing wheel and made it totally smooth with slightly rounded edges. The fellow who siggested the change thought (and I agreed) that one doesn't want friction between the finger and trigger.
For kicks, here's a description and photo of my 1911:
It was originally an Argentine Sistema, and when I got it, the previous owner had replaced the hammer, sear, disconector, recoild spring, grip safety, mainspring housing, and trigger with (IIRC) Wilson Combat parts (I have all the original parts, though).
I installed an ambi safety, since I'm left handed. I shot it for a while with the replacement flat mainspring housing, but decided to put the original (arched, with lanyard loop) housing on. In addition to fitting my hand better, it has dulled stippling on it, and makes for a more secure hold than the flat one.
The beavertail is one with extended lump. I've never found this to be a problem (in fact, I can't even feel it there), and I've never failed to disengage the grip safety, so I've left it alone.
I had a smith do a trigger job on it, which reduced the pull from ~5.5 pounds to a crisp 3.5. I shoot .22 bullseye at school, and have gotten used (read: spoiled by) to light triggers.
As I mentioned, I have the trigger guard undercut. As the same time, I had the shop pull off the original (pre-A1) sights and replace them with a tritium Trijicon front post and Novak rear sight. I skipped tritium on the rear them because I couldn't afford it, but since then I've done a bit of night shooting and found the front-only illumination to be ok. I'll have to do a lot more before I make a final decision on whether or not to mess with the rear again. In any case, during the day these sights are both more precise and faster than the dimple-like (and dinged up) originals.
When I got it, the pistol wouldn't drop empty mags on its own, and some magazines were
really tight. So I filed out the inside of the mag well until it drops any mag right out, even at cants up to 45 degrees or so. At the same time, I gave the bottom of the well a small bevel.
I was having some trouble keeping a steady hold on the gun with sweaty hands (haven't tried shooting with deliberately-greased or wet hands; I'll have to add that to a practice regimen), so I put a piece of skateboard grip tape on the front strap. It's grippy enough to help, but not so much as to be uncomfortable during extended shooting sessions. Hadn't thought about needing to adjust grip position, as I've always used the jam-down-and-yank-out style of draw. I'll be trying out the method you described, though.
I left on the original hard rubber grip panels. They work great, and I see no reason to change. I also haven't messed with the slide-to-frame fit (it rattles a bit), barrel, or bushing. I feed it mostly semi-wadcutters (the cheapest to reload), and it digests them just fine. I tried a piece of empty brass, and (to my delight) it fed that too.
I've used the gun in a couple IDPA matches, half an IPSC match (it got rained out partway through), and a pair of one-day pistol classes. It's given me no problems, other than to tell me that I need to practice more.