Losing my mind!

I would like some feedback on the following narrative: Last spring I swam in my first masters meets. I had trained pretty hard, mostly on my own, and felt good heading into competition. At zones I swam the 50, 100, 200 and 500 free, plus some offstroke stuff for fun. I did okay, but did not break a minute in the 100 (went 1:02) which had been my goal. So I got hooked up with a coach, who identified that my timing was not so good. That is, my catch and pull were happening too quickly, so my stroke was inefficient. My arms were sort of windmilly. He worked with me to rebuild my stroke pretty much from scratch. It got more efficient, but the timing has been off the other way: that is, I feel like my hands are marooned out in front of me for too long. I have been swimming in this "catch up" mode while trying to adjust the timing. I have been working on this for SIX MONTHS. I have not been able to make the intervals I had been making last spring, but have thought that it was only a question of time, or will. So last weekend I swam in my first meet since this process began. I was able to almost match my 50 time from last spring (adjusted from SCM) but my 100 was terrible. My second 50 was 5 seconds slower than my first 50. I felt like I was swimming in slow motion. So on the drive home I resolved to adjust--maybe I wouldn't actually be a sprinter anymore, and with my new slower stroke I'd shift to distance events. So the last several days I have been swimming longer sets. But here's the thing: I can only make the "efficient" stroke work well for 50 yards or so by aggressively accelerating the catch; after that, the natural catch-up rhythm of the stroke takes over, and I slow down and feel crappy. Tonight out of frustration I did a quick set of 50s and almost by accident I slipped back in to my bad old rhythm and suddenly I felt way quicker and stronger, if not as efficient. I ripped off a few 100s and was faster and less tired, although I could tell that my stroke was less pretty. I feel like I'm losing my mind. Has anyone ever tried to work on technique to their detriment? I think I can work incrementally on lengthening my stroke from my "bad" timing better than I can accelerate from my new slow timing. But who knows? I have been so committed to trying to figure this out, but feel like I am moving backwards. Once upon a time I was somewhat fast (high 22s in the 50, 50 flat in the 100). Am I nuts? Am I an idiot? Am I an aqua-dork? Help!