What could cause extremely high effort to release a Tost CG hook on aTwin Astir?

I believe I remeber a Kestral that had a "stiff release" issue. He removed the seat pan and discovered that the pan was depressing with his weight in it and binding the cable. But you said you have removed the seat pans and checked all of the cables.

My second guess would have been that there was a worn spot or nick in the "jaws" of the TOST release that might be catching on the ring under strain. But you said the TOST was fairly new. Is the TOST ring in fairly good shape and not one of the imposters that were on the market a few years back?

It would be great if you could have a cable under load at GS=0 to visually watch the release mechanism, but that is not a safe venture without a lot of precautions in set up.

BillT