Well, this explains a lot of things.
That's the factory SRAM grease. It has turned to a gelatinous paste that's
really sticky,
really solid, and just as bad - if not worse - than what was left over in the AW hub of my never-serviced 1952 Raleigh Sports.
It's a miracle any of the pawls were engaging at all. Everything - and I mean
everything was severely gunked up. These things were made between 2014 and 2017, so that means it had no more than six years to get this way. If so, I have a feeling that the factory-spec grease might be more at fault than anything else for the premature engagement issues that the G8 and G9 are frequently cited for. Not that I've reassembled it yet to confirm such, but it's a theory not without merit.
I've been soaking the bits in the meantime:
-Kurt