In browse mode the pointer has a shape of a hand and not of an arrow. This may makes sense since it simulates the action of grabbing the sheet but I think that even with a shape of an arrow there wouldn't be any usability problems. The reason I suggest to have it as an arrow is the following: Some popup notes (probably produced in Adobe) are rendered in okular as very small triangles, so that to open the popup note a super high mouse pointing precision is required. The "browse mode" pointer has a shape of a hand (and not an arrow) so that it's even more difficult to hit the correct point to open the popup note since it's not clear which is the "active" point of the cursor. Reproducible: Always
I do see your problem, but to be honest: The real problem here is the handles for the popup notes being too small, not the cursor being too big. We don't want users to have to aim precisely at something only a few pixels in size, no matter with which cursor
The cursor shape is not relevant for the actual precision. However it gives a feeling of an exact position, in particular the crosshairs for the selection. But the shape is much more relevant to illustrate the underlying function. The hand shaped cursor shows the grab functionality (BTW: how the cursor looks depends on the cursor theme) and changes to grabbing with left mouse button pressed. The arrow is the default pointer and well suited to the zoom mode. If we would change the browse mode cursor it rather adds confusion since the arrow is used unspecifically.
Ok. Makes sense to keep the hand.