I had an interesting turn of events with my 7x7. 2-3 days ago, I was getting horrible times, and decided the cube was part of the problem, so I tightened each side a quarter turn and lubed the pieces, and instantly dropped 20 seconds off my average and broke all my PBs. Just today, the cube was still turning pretty well, but it popped a few times and I could feel that it was getting slightly looser and less stable, so I tightened each side very slightly; less than a quarter turn each. The cube instantly turned to ****. At first, one side was too tight to even turn, and the others were sluggish as well, so I loosened them all about the same amount that I'd just tightened them. Now the cube feels both looser and more sluggish than it did 20 minutes ago, before I tried tensioning it again, and I can tell that I'm going to be 30 seconds slower than I have been the last few days unless I can get the cube working decently again. Have any of you experienced this ****ing ****, and if so, how have you dealt with it? I'm beyond fed up at this point.
EDIT: so, it stopped being sluggish; now it's just really loose and unstable. It's already exploded twice; something it never does, and I can't find one of the pieces. *facepalm* On the solves it doesn't pop, I'm doing OK, though!