We fitted the cabinet with the smoothest runners we could find. The drawer now travels its full length from a fingertip and stops with a soft-close nobody asked for.
Everyone who used it pulled too hard. Every single one. The absence of resistance read as an absence of the drawer.
The friction was never a defect. It was the drawer telling you how far it had gone.
We put a felt pad at three quarters travel. It adds nothing mechanically. It gives the hand a landmark, and the complaints stopped that afternoon.