I was looking for slightly higher print quality, less retraction/less jams, and also wanted to print flexible materials, which is much easier with a direct extruder.


Good news though! I figured it out - actually I pinged e3d and Daniel basically said it's overheated and check my part cooling. That was it.
A lot of the time, I've been printing with no part cooling at all and things print just fine, but not this time. I printed out a better part cooling fan mount, reoriented the heater block to fit, and now it prints 10x better. =) I now realize how critical part cooling is. I had done some quick tests and thought I had ruled out part cooling as the problem, but I guess those weren't good tests afterall.