I ended up taking apart the gear housing, cleaned everything, greased it up and got it back together, but for some reason the clutch is still very stiff to move.
Anyway, because it is a Warn and only 1.5 years old, I dropped it at the Warn service center so they can bring it back to working condition and fix the part with the broken thumb tab too. I don't really like these winches with the round clutch -- hard to grab onto and turn when you are sinking in the mud hole. I probably should have bought the provantage 2500 -- it looks to have a better clutch setup.