Enjoyed reading the thread man. From my experience yes, stress will slow down maturity of a plant. I personally know of some deep blue c that is 90 days old and has 30 more days to go due to stress, lol. I had the same "crisping" problem on my first grow. I attribute it to a combination of over feeding and high temps/ humidity but frankly don't know for sure. It is going to make trimming a pain in the ass! Also seemed to make for fluffy buds in general. From my continued experience autos don't need much feed at all until they hit bloom, and even then feeding every single day could cause salt buildup/lockout. Keep up the growing and learn with an open mind and I'm sure you can prevent past problems going forward!
Cheers man