Goldwing stat up issue

[harkauto]

Up until yesterday my '84 GL-1200 Goldwing was starting and running like a champ. I could set the choke on a cold engine and hit the starter button and the bike would fire right off almost instantly with just a bump of the button.

Yesterday I was going to make a run to the gas station to get gas. I hopped on the bike, set the choke and again as usual the bike fired right up with just a bump of the starter button. However this time as I sat on the bike waiting for it to warm up for a moment I noticed the RPM on the tachometer was just loping long at about 500 RPM at full choke. It was a very hot and humid day yesterday with a heat index of probably 100 degrees and 80% humidity so I thought, well maybe since it is so warm the bike does not need any choke. So I backed off on the choke a little bit and instead of the RPM's increasing the RPM's dropped even lower than 500 RPM and nearly killing the engine. And no matter where I placed the the choke setting the engine did the same thing. Finally, in order to keep the bike running I had to manually give it fuel with the throttle.
Then after the bike warmed up a bit I tried setting the choke again to see what it would do and found that at full choke the engine would finally run on its own and at about the 1000 RPM mark without my assistance on the throttle. After warming up a little more I could back off on the choke to about 1/2 choke and then the engine would drop down to a consistent 500 RPM. I then took the bike for a ride and found that finally after the bike reached normal operating temperature I could back completely off the choke and the bike would finally idle at stop right at the 1000 RPM mark like it should.
I'm wondering.....does this sound like a choke adjustment issue?
I'm also wondering what a normal choke experience should look like on a cold engine. At full choke should the engine instantly run right up to about 2000 RPM or so?

A while back I pulled cleaned and re-gaped my spark plugs.
The manual said the gap should be set anywhere between .031 and .035 inches. I originally had them gaped at .033.
In my mind my logic told me that the wider the gap the bigger the spark and better the ignition of the fuel/air mixture; so I set my plug gap at the farthest end of the range at .035.
Could it possibly be that by widening the gap on my spark plugs that I may have created a weaker spark that could be causing this choke situation?

I appreciate your thoughts and wisdom concerning this.

Thanks,

Harkgold