I know you said you're fixed, but I'd like to leave this for posterity, or in case your problem manifests again.
What number is your tensioner on when the stitch looks OK?
Top tension really tight still makes me think that there's something misassembled in the upper tensioner. Your fixes may be a temporary reprieve, or permanent. If they're temporary,
http://mysewingmachineobsession.blogspot.ca has some great tension tutorials. For the moment, I'm having trouble finding the one I'm thinking of, but it's good reading nonetheless.
The fabric being hard to remove, and the thread being hard to pull regardless of the position of the presser foot lever is probably the tension release pin. She goes through a lot about it here:
http://mysewingmachineobsession.blog...-assembly.html
and she's even fabricated pins.
The outer knob has a pin on the backside of it. If you push the ring with the numbers inward toward the body of the machine (make sure the machine is on something stable, they're so light, they will travel before other things will move sometimes) you will see that the numbered ring has a set of holes in it that the pin sits in. To loosen the overall tension of the upper tensioner (which we would do if say the dial read 3 and the thread was breaking), you would push the numbered ring in, and turn the outer knob a part turn or so, make sure it seats in a hole, and then test. You'd repeat this until the tension settings became "sane".
If the nest is "only" for the first several stitches, that's relieved by holding the tails of both threads when you start. The FW insists on this or it builds a nest. If the nests are throughout the seam.... I'm a little confused. I've seen that on a horizontal bobbin when the upper tension is right or even too tight (which is what yours should be doing) but not on a vertical bobbin. Thread laying across the top means top tension too tight, or bottom tension too loose. But we've pretty much determined that your top tension is too tight...
The nests on the bottom are 98% of the time top tension issues. Try threading the machine with 2 different colors to see it.
The day I figured that out, my sewing changed for the better forever since. I kept tinkering until I saw that. When I saw it, I knew every time what to do.
Yes, bobbin thread should be loaded in a particular direction. On the FW, it's supposed to unwind counter clock wise.
Dental floss would more likely help you if the upper tension was too loose. Lint holds the disks apart, and therefore not enough pressure is put on the thread, and it slips through too easily.
I have the same problem with thread and floss, etc with the cats around here.
This manual will show you how the tensioner disassembles. It's an owner's manual. It was intended to be user serviceable.
http://www.ismacs.net/singer_sewing_...ght-manual.pdf This is perhaps my favorite copy of the FW manual. It shows more than some of the others.
Can you post a photo of the 2 bobbins with a flat side and side with holes? Assuming they're the same size as the FW bobbins, I don't think I've seen them before. If they're smaller, they could be an Elna bobbin, or a class 66 bobbin. Neither of which will work in the FW.