I decided to clean my throttle plate today

I assume the engine worked more or less before you removed the throttle body?

The throttle plate has to let a small amount of air into the manifold. There is no idle air valve which acts to bypass the throttle plate.

It's not clear to me why you felt the need to remove the throttle body. I would have been content just rotating the throttle plate 90 degrees by hand, to scrub around the interior and the throttle plate the best I could with a clean cloth soaked in throttle body cleaner.

 

Exactly what I did yesterday with my wife's '07. (among other things like plugs, pcv valve, serpentine belt) Very easy to do. I'd sure hate to drop one of those screws down there.

 

I've cleaned mine by removing it easier to clean and lube I put socket Extensions in each coolent line and spray down Manifold then shove a reg in there to clean the bottom and I use a brush to clean old gasket and add gasket goo both sides of gasket they get dirty and replace the pcv at the same time

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Image 2 looks pretty good to me. If you rotate the throttle plate by hand you can at least clean half of the throttle plate edge. I agree that the other half is not in reach unless the throttle body is removed.

Changing the PCV valve is a good project. (How about the iridum spark plugs?) Your access will be substantially improved if you first remove the sheet metal tray that the windshield wiper motor sits in.

 

I would get an injection and fuel system service done where they spray into the throttle body. It also cleans the manifold really nice.

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G2 does not use egr like your 2013 so manifold does not need cleaning.
And most dealers a fuel system service is a can of injector cleaning at double Markup

To the op make sure you lubricate the end spring and don't forget the 10 mm throttle body throat clamp underneath the air cleaner box. If not tight unmetered air will sneak by and car will not run good