I agree that a 16 is way too small a needle for a 30 wt thread. Go to a lighter thread like a 50 wt or put a bigger needle in. Your thread is shredding because the eye of the needle is too small for it.
Additionally, I am not real familiar with your machine but is it set up to have the spool vertical or horizontal. If vertical you may be using a crosswound spool which means the thread won't feed off the spool correctly for your set up. You need to go to cone thread or the long narrow spools like Aurifil or Connecting threads come in. This could also be causing your breaking issues.
As to your other issues, if you have a stitch regulator (which I do not think cruise control is, it is simply a mechanism to set your machine's speed) try cleaning the encoder wheels (where they glilde on the rails) with rubbing alcohol and qtip. Clean the rails as well. I know some SR need some sort of weight on them to make them ride the rails more consistently. Most people improvise something. Rice bags or dried beans or that sort of thing. If your Cruise control is simply a speed regulator you need to practice to match your speed to the speed of the machine. Moving too fast causes the big stitches, too slow the small stitches. Skipped stitches could be going back to that heavy thread, too small needle issue.
To tell the difference, turn your machine on with cruise control engaged or turned on. Is the needle going up and down when the machine is stationary? If so then you have a speed regulator NOT a stitch regulator so you won't have any encoder wheels. You need to practice to maintain an even stitch length.
Please let us know how you make out.