I'm trying to get my hood perfectly aligned with the front bumper and am just wondering what people recommend I try next.

The hood aligned well but was a bit off at the fenders. I lowered the rubber bump stops to get it tighter. What happened was the passenger side now aligns perfectly, but the driver's side sticks up at the fender.

If I gently press on the hood, the hood spring compresses and the hood aligns perfectly. It's almost as if the hood spring is too stiff; the spring does seat correctly on the front bumper.

Should I lower the latch mechanism in the bumper?

With bump stops lowered all the way. Note passenger's side sits flush, driver's side sticks up because of spring:


Before - note hood sits level from left to right, but is just a tad high relative to the nose and the fenders, which is why I attempted to lower it about a quarter inch.

 

Have you read the adjustment procedure in the shop manual? It gives the specific order to adjust the hinge bolts, hood latch, bumpers, etc.

 

Could be the hinges are tweaked a bit.You can put a 2x4 under the lower corner of the hood and gently push down on the other corner.Wrap the 2X4 in a towel if you're concerned about scratching something.
If the hood is level with the fenders & there's still a gap in the center.You can adjust the bumper to your desired gap.Lowering the latch only, makes it harder to close the hood.

 

Just downloaded and looking at it now... what throws me off about the issue is that it seems to align just fine if it weren't for the spring pushing the hood back up on that side. I think I need to lower the bumper hatch a tad and then raise the bump stops back up. The spring pushes it up until the latch backstop holds it. I think if that's lowered, I'll get more spring compression, and the bump stops can then even it out since the spring applies uneven force on the hood due to the offset.

 

Fixed it - what I did was lower the latch mechanism in the front bumper by about 1/8th of an inch.

Then I moved the passenger side bumper up a little bit higher than the driver's side so as to offset the spring's uneven upward pressure (the spring is offset to the driver's side, so that side gets pushed up a bit more). Now it sits even.

The driver's side front corner of the hood doesn't perfectly blend with the bumper, but it's close. This is mainly due to the bumper having slightly warped over time. I'm guessing this is normal for aging plastic bits.