[madmaxx]

I am not so sure on the physics of the clutch arm pushing on the throw out bearing and in turn deflecting the input shaft causing binding of the pilot bushing is accurate. In fact if you take off your slave cylinder you will find the clutch arm to pilot bearing has quite a bit of movement by design. It is impossilbe to deflect the input shaft by use of the clutch arm so slave cylinder misalignment may result in reduced slave cylinder life it will have not affect on input shaft to pilot bearing / bushing.

Tell him to guess again. I would take a radial runout measurement on your input shaft, id measurement on your bushing/bearing. Obviosuly radial runout should be zero.