The joystick was not physically stuck, it continues to spring back into place without issue. . . I haven't really been able to repro on a different game or outside of that one play session, so thats weird. Its like I need 2 friends to agree to stress test the thing with me which makes testing spotty. . . I have more time to sit and think about these problems than I do to actually work on them, so I figured I'd just put it out there and ask, so thanks for your response.
I'm concerned about migrating to crimps because it involves de-soldering all the currently working connections. That sounds like me potentially making things worse, but maybe I'm exaggerating that in my head. I thought that I could learn something about testing these switches and potentially identify one or two troublespots, so i was just wondering how to do such a thing. For instance, if I want to find out if player 1 up is connected as well as player 3 up, could I use the multimeter to measure the volts or ohms when up was pressed and compare? Will I see a difference if one is somehow grounded 'better' than the other? To do such a thing do I connect the leads to the individual switch CN and Ground? If I touch the leads to the actual switch, will it test the wiring at all? Can I break anything by just touching the leads around in there?