Hi Ed: I noticed your problem about some of your trebles going false. I have a solution that works for me. Remove the strings and flip them over so that what was once at the bridge now gets tied at the peg and the peg end is now tied at the bridge. I have a theory that as you play the strings become mashed down and distorted between the second and fourth frets (because that's where 90% of us play) to a point they become false. If you turn them around, as I have described, you are now fingering a portion of the string that is more or less true in diameter, the false portions no longer affect the new sections of string as they are played. In essence you can get double life span out of them.
As you may or may not know I use a doubled first course on my Lute. When that course goes bad you really notice it, possibly the reason the practice was not wide spread hundreds of years ago. I use El Cheapo nylon strings but I suppose this would hold true with Nylgut or even real gut. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
