Both Libra and Samira share a very nice roller-bearing IAR that is enclosed in seals.
Samira adds rubber seals at the shaft/rotor and at the drive bearings.
Paul, I think what made your Samira feel more-free-spinning was the added torque you're putting through the custom handle.
Tica is bad about matching handles to drive ratios; instead, they use the same handle pitch for common sizes.
Libra SX 2500 and even the 3000 come with silly-long 65 mm handles for the 4.6 gearing - I always shorten those to 55 mm.
All the 1000/2000 size Tica reels, and including the smaller Cetus, come with 50 mm handles. That's not enough length for the 6.2 gears on the Samira 2000H.- and the 50 mm is too long for the little Cetus with its 23"/rev line pick-up.
This is a 37 mm pitch on Cetus
55 mm custom on Libra 3000, next to the stock 65 mm handle
The way you look at handle pitch - with a longer handle, you're putting in more torque and effectively slowing down the gears, because you move your hand farther to complete a rotation.
Shorter handle, you reduce the load on the gears, and effectively speed them up because you can spin fast.