These problems have now exceeded the level of ridiculousness, I know this may not be the place to ask this but do you think replacing my PS3 HDD or formatting and reinstalling from scratch would help? I may be jumping to conclusions and I've already said this in all my posts but I feel like it's a PS3 issue (as in my PS3, not PS3's in general).

Maybe it overheated or something I'm not sure but the title of this thread really does say it all, it's not a matter of playing with lag or things taking a little longer. I literally cannot play anymore because my issues stated in the original post have deteriorated severely.