I've printed similar objects with a different colored PLA, but I ran out of it and switched to this.

Is it possible that this could be influencing the outcome?

I have tried reducing the printing speed by 50%, but this did not seem to have a significant impact.

[SOLUTION] The problem was a loose screw. The offending part as well as the new result are pictured below. It's not perfect, which I guess is actually a part of the model this time, but it's good enough for my purposes and way better than what it was before.

I figured this out by twisting the Z-axis thingy manually all the way to the top to see if I could feel any issues. Towards the top, it would start to 'skip', where I would turn and pretty much nothing would happen. I assume this has to do with the lack of lube at the top because my prints rarely go that high. I checked to see if the screws were loose, and sure enough, the top one was. I tightened it up and now my printer is printing like the beast I remember!

Isn't it enough to just enter your password once to login, then receive a warning whenever you're about to do something potentially dangerous?

If it's such a big security risk, how come the most popular and widely used operating systems in the world and their users seem to be unaffected by it?

I guarantee, most new users coming to Linux from Windows/macOS are going to laugh and look at you funny if you try to justify entering your password again and again and again.