Trying to improve print quality and avoid clogs

I'm brand new on the 3D printing game and just got put in charge of my company's new 3D printer (we basically drew straws...), a MakerBot 2X.

After having a huge number of issues, including a massive, unclear able clog in the thermal tube after only one print, we got our replacement printer and I'm curious about how to improve the print quality that I'm getting so far. I suspect that the printing temp (230C for each extruder) might be too high, as I'm getting leakage from the idle extruder that gets stuck to the print as the extruder moves over it, but I'm not sure what the minimum printing temp for ABS (MakerBot brand) is. And I'm desperately trying to avoid a clogging situation, which may have resulted from a high temp, like last time.

I'm also getting a sort of rippled pattern on the surface of the print instead of smooth. I recently relieved the bed to give the nozzles a little more distance from the bed, but is this surface texture a sign that they're still too close?

Any tips for a first timer would be appreciated!

You could look at the retraction settings for the extruder. Think about creating custom profiles and tweak those.

As to the rippling effect, if it is very regular, this could be resonance so you could think about changing the layer height slightly.

the surface texture could also just be the layers.
No fdm 3d prints is ever smooth coming off the printer.
Remember that you are printing with a cylindrical bead. so the edges never match up exactly.
Think of it like a the way a log cabin is built. Always indentations between the layers of logs.
FDM 3d printing is exactly like that, just with really really tiny logs :-)

Makes you wonder why nobody has yet made a square profile nozzle.
For certain builds, that would be really useful.

Also pictures help :-)