Wow, okay, I was not expecting such a detailed and well-thought out response. Thank you for that.
I am improving in terms of crosshair placement, spray/recoil control, etc. I'm completely confident fighting iron and bronze players, and I'm doing routines to try and improve (although I will give the ones you mentioned a try).
The main issue I have is that, because of the position I'm in at the moment, I am struggling to be consistent across games. Looking through my match history, there's a clear, noticeable trend of me winning and facing opponents of increasingly higher ranks/skill, at which point I begin to play worse and worse, until eventually the game becomes entirely unplayable and I can go multiple rounds without getting a single kill.
I wouldn't have a problem with this if I lost, say, 5-15RR for a game where I get completely destroyed by opponents of way higher skill. The thing that really infuriates me is when the game puts me in a game full of ex...