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It turns out that the pad fits so tightly in a "nest" that any amount of rust causes the pad to stick in the "nest" and effectively causes the pad to lock up. The worse the amount of rust, the more prevalent the sticking becomes.
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My F150 was particularly sneaky in that regard... the pad guides are stainless clips that clip on the big cast iron caliper mounts on the spindles; so far, so good. I discovered the brakes dragging and upon investigation found what you did- binding pads... but how? The pads were clean and so were the stainless clips.
I finally figured out to pull the stainless clips off and have a look underneath. All still looked OK but in fact there was a nice rust build-up under the stainless that put the squeeze on the pads. The rust was so compacted that it looked like the cast iron surface of the caliper mounts but some work with a scratch awl at first, then wire wheel on an angle grinder revealed the rather thick layer of rust.
I greased that area up and put it all back together.
That was a few years ago and it's all still good. Grease is a great rust preventative; just use it sparingly around brake parts so there is no chance of it migrating to the braking surfaces.