Engines - Honda - Accord :: 2002 - Up Shifting Late Into Some Gears?

After a round of extensive maintenance this month, I thought my '02 was once again a road-ready betty. Just my luck! On the drive home from the shop Friday afternoon, I noticed a hard shift when upshifting from 2nd to 3rd. I've done some test driving over the last couple of days, and here's what I've noticed:

1) If I apply too much gas, I intermittently get a little bump—very subtle—when it kicks into first gear from a running stop. The car seems to engage fine at start.2) If I apply too much gas approaching 30MPH in 2nd gear, where I think it would normally shift into 3rd, the transmission upshifts late and hard. The more gas I apply, the harder the shift.3) Once, when gunning it at highway speeds, I got a little bump shifting into a cruising gear at around 70MPH.

I'm able to completely eliminate this problem if I am prudent with the accelerator. If I back off the gas before the tachometer hits 3000RPMs and wait a few seconds before accelerating again, the transmission shifts smoothly. I have not noticed any issues with coasting or downshifting.

I've had this car for a decade and 146K miles and it's driven like a dream every day until this symptom presented on Friday. I don't remember the last time the transmission fluid was changed, but I've never missed a scheduled service and I always use Honda dealer shops. I checked the fluid yesterday, and I think the colour (winey red) and odor (sweet) were both good. The car had been driven recently, and the level on the dipstick was higher than the second dot.