This is confusing me, because you’re right, they are pre-reclined a little bit. But as far as I can tell the seats (more specifically, the area around the headrests) are also curved on many (not all) planes, so that my upper back is very much shoved forward. It’s never made much sense as a seat design to me and if you’re not noticing it with 3 inches on me I’m now wondering if it’s something specific about where my shoulder blades are on the seat. But that definitely leads me to recline most of the time. (Well, that and I basically only fly long hauls where I want to nap.)