Sounds like a great grow Mojo! you need to get some pictures up ASAP, my imagination is running wild and I am dying to see what you are doing. As for your infestation problem, although the insects are gone, you may be interested in purchasing goGnats, it's a organic product made out of cedar oil and will DESTROY all small soft-bodied insects leaching your garden. It is safe for foliar spraying, surface spraying, room spraying, drain-to-waste feeding as well as recirculating systems. It's so delicate you can spray it directly on a freshly cut "fim" without a sign of stress in sight. It's a beautiful product and in my experience 95% effective 90% of the time... and I like them numbers a lot. Growing with seeds has so many advantages, but so many draw backs. But it is definitely the way to go for Mom's! Just grow a lot out and pick your favorite, trash or flower the rest, it's up to you, depends on how cold you can be. lol.
I don't remember if you had specified but the 600w are wayyyy better than 400's for your space, too much is def better than not enough. This is almost always the rule unless it is nutes. And the "cork screw" growth is often from environmental stress, as well as other things. My guess is that you knocked the living shit out of your plant and root system getting rid of all that dirt (guessing you agitated the soil off) and it probably ripped off a large portion of the precious thin root hairs, and more. This will recover as time goes on, and as SomeGuy said (been following his grows and holy shit does he know what he is talking about) use 50% on mist systems. I personally wouldn't know, I used soiless peatmoss/perlite/vermiculite/hydroton combo so I load up the PPM's like mad on mine.
Anyways, good luck, and get some darn pictures up!