J, again sorry about not being able to type a full post last night!
As for backwashing the cycle is Backwash till the water clears up, RINSE for 15 - 30 sec. (this removes the loosened debris that hasn't found it's way out of the filter yet) then repeat this process until the backwash starts out clean, then it's time to go back to 'filter' and add 80% of ther recommended de (which microclear do you have? if it's the 7.5 lb (6020) only add 6 lbs of de, if it's the 6 lb (4800) only add 5 lbs) since backwashing can only remove 80% of the de, only replace 80%, adding too much or too little can cause performance problems. However, as you are on a well and don't want to tax it's ability to keep the pool full, and said that you've ripped it apart and hosed it before, I would recommend doing that when you need to backwash, it'll save you water. When you hose off the grids, do you get into all the channels between the 8 grids from top and bottom? Doing this with a hose that has low pressure can take a while, but if you use the backwash hose, with the multiport set on WASTE, you can do it much quicker with less water loss (pinch the hose end and direct the flow in between the grids from the side) If you go to remove the 'nest' (the grid assembly) and can barely move it from it's weight, odds are that the filter has been 'over charged' and instead of having 7 lbs of de in it, it has 30 lbs, you may want to rethink the acid wash, your problem could easily be caused by way too much de in the filter. An indication that chemical cleaning needs to be done is if the grids retain a good bit of water after being thoroughly hosed.
If you plan on taking your grids to be acidwashed, keep me posted, I am in Ct and would feel really bad if in the next week I got a work order to acid wash Jeremy Weber's grids. There's a post here (I'll try ! to capture it and edit it into this post, but my sucess rate on linking is ... well, low) about removing oils before doing the acid wash (using detergent or TSP) because acid washing oilfilled grids clogs them. I wish you well with your problem and will keep my eye on this thread - GO HUSKIES!