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Your meters are probably measuring average power and not reflected power. That output is pretty normal for SSB, but you can probably tweak some more.
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To see full power use FM or digital, but be sure not to key down more than a few seconds. Using a 100% duty cycle mode at 100W you can cook your finals fairly quick. I believe the manual recommends about 30W max for 100% duty cycle modes on HF & 6m. You can tweak you SSB mic gain and processor level (menu 74). Don't forget to turn menu c [proc] on.? You will probably find that lower than 50% on both will maximize power out and clarity. I tend to hold my mic to touching the corner of my mouth and speak across the mic, not into it, with a loud conversational voice. The mic is basically facing away from my face.? Maybe >75dB-spl. The processor ended up at 20 and SSB mic gain of 36. You may end up a bit higher, but probably less than 30 on the processor and below 50 on SSB mic gain. If you get average power up to 25W-30W range you are doing very good. You might find more power by going deep into the service menu, but beware you don't cook your radio trying to get the last Watt. If you are already getting >85W using a 100% duty cycle mode, I suggest leaving it. The FT-XXX radios vary with band from the factory usually in >=90W range. The condensor mic with buttons and a 2.3kHz collins filter will give you a bit tighter audio for clarity to punch through stronger signals and noise. You best investment is a good antenna. It is a passive amplifier for both transmit and receive and it works on all radios. A resonant single band dipole is hard to beat in a wire antenna, but a quality EFHW 49:1 not 9:1 random wire performs nearly as well as a dipole and you get excellent band agility. You do want to optimize installation. Steve did a lot more testing using a field strength meter and RF ammeter. Myantennas makes a great 49:1 EFHW transformer that is spec'd. Otherwise do a mono band dipole if you want an excellent cheap wire antenna.
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