Hi all,
I'd been bothered by the series of "stops" built into the hot vs. cold slider control on my 99 Altima. I finally took the centre console apart far enough to get a look at it a few weeks ago, and found it was fairly simple to remove the metal clip that is spring loaded against the stops along the length of the slider.
From memory, once you get the hvac module out of the dash, a few screws will free the cover on the bottom. This gives access to the arm that has the cable at one and and the slider at the other, and with that removed, the slider and metal spring clip will come out. It's pretty simple to do and vastly improves the feel (IMHO) of the control. It feels and sounds much less cheap now than before.
Just thought I'd post my success story in case anyone else was considering doing the same.