RE: String Leech Question
You really shouldn't have noticed any difference at all. Even your elevation shouldn't have changed a whole lot. Since you had something on the string already changing to the leeches shouldn't have changed the speed enough to make a difference. Even going from a bare string to leeches doesn't make much difference in my experience.
Any chance something got bumped when you were pressing the bow to install the leeches? That's the only thing I could come up with.