Yeah, I hear you about the lightening horror story.
What a pain.
The resistor/jumper found feeding signal from driver to final has been a prime candidate for circuit tweaking, if they have a resistor present from the factory, downsize it by half (100 Ohm to 50 Ohm)
to increase power.
Or add resistance to decrease the power/D.K. (A.K.A. JP36 mod cobra 29)
If you want it to over-modulate you can add a capacitor across the resistor, just stay 220uF or under, else it tends to get
really nasty. Can't say that I recommend a mod to over-modulate, but some people want the little radio to
"swang" at any cost.