comp cams w/ rough nitride finish

[spudgunster]

Howdy folks, first post of the year looks like. Long time viewer, first time poster, here. If this has been discussed on the site anywhere, I couldn't find it. Here's the issue:
I built myself a stroker 4.6 inline six from a grand Cherokee Laredo 4.0 that had developed a nod rock, got it put together 10 years ago, destined for a CJ7 I inherited, been sitting in my non climate controlled Florida shop ever since with just towels in the intake, exhaust ports. Mice took the towels out, made a nest in the throttle body, a mess. Anyway, I have it all cleaned up and repainted with rustoleum (the VHT engine paint I had put on it all let go on it's own, grrr).
I took off the oil pan to double check the rod bearing clearance with a micrometer that I didn't own 10 years ago, because I had stupidly taken a balancing shops word for it that I didn't need to go up/down a bearing size, while also telling me they polished it an extra time because the machine shop that did the head, block and first crank cleanup did a bad job (they did indeed do a terrible job leaving grooves on the journals that they said "aren't bad, it's just extra oil retention"). Later, I did some searching on the gargler (10 years ago) and found some comments suggesting that each crank polish could remove up to 3 thousandths. My crank from the CJ7 258 is only missing about 1 thou or less, so no worries. While I was in the bottom end, I washed out the inside of the block with diesel. Afterwards, I noticed the cam lobes looked rusty, but it didn't feel rusty. scotchbrite won't remove it. Looking at ancient pictures I took during assembly, It appears that I had a nitrided cam from comp, a 68-235-4, which appears in pictures to come with that process done to it by default. BUT, instead of looking black, it looks like a bunch of leopard spots on bare iron? Looks that way in both old and new pictures, so I guess it's not rust after all, but they FEEL bad running my finger nail on them, far from the mirror finish I expected to see/feel. I was determined to pull it back apart and polish it at home with a more aggressive scotchbrite like the maroon stuff until the old pictures were discovered for comparison. Did the assembly lube turn it from black Nitride to the spotted natural iron look? Do some Nitrided cams from comp just not really look so black? Are the spots from nodules or grains in the cast iron? Knowing that I put stiffer mopar performance spring in, I'm very afraid that it's going to eat itself... thoughts? opinions?