Thought I would update my progress.
I had a lul with mowing during a relative dry spell, so I took the deck off to scrape and pressure wash it. While I had it off and clean, I decided since I was that far into it, I would continue and grind it down and apply the graphite paint. Got the underside all clean with a drill wire brush and grinder and applied the first coat of EX-Slide today. Going to keep adding coats until the quart can is empty. Then my plan is a nice coating of Fluid Film and install my new Gator Blades.
Hope it works - I don't know what else to do short of having the deck powder coated. Hopefully the combination of the graphite paint and Gator blades will at help some. I'll report back after my initial mower which should be early next week.