RE: Heli wobbles during flight
blades should be able to rotate in their grips... its why they give you a foam blade holder for transport, because the blades do rotate. atleast on CP, I imagine its the same for FP though.
obviously you straighten the blades out before you spin it up, but you'll never straighten them to absolute perfection, ever... the centrifigal force of the spinning will do the job for him within the first few seconds, which is what he says about autocorrection.
I honestly have no clue what the balance thing is with the CF rod and christmas tree hooks... every guide Ive ever seen involves some sort of small shaft(I use a spare main shaft), some tape, and then a blade balancer or scale... spraypainting? that seems incredably complicated, they make and sell balancing/tracking tape for this exact purpose.
OP figured out the problem already though, little warm in the main shaft and gear, swap em out and he should be perfectily fine.