This thread is already rather old, but I though I'd share my thoughts and experiences as it might be helpful to someone.
I started out just like you. At some point I dove deep in the Pali cannon. I was obsessed and very confused. It was a clutch and I became somewhat disassociated in a disbalanced way. Because I realized I was reading way too much, I gave it up. I continued life with many dilusions in my head and acted very unskilfully at times and eventually I rememembered dhamma and realized I needed it.
I think that dhamma is sometimes hard to understand as a philosophy. Sometimes it get us in our nerves on things we really should rethink in our lives. Sometimes it makes us really overreact to things that were OK. But that's part of the process, that's what it's supposed to do.
When you understand it is very clear. But that understanding only comes from realizing it in your own life. The words themselves can be very confusing. The words carry limited meaning. There are some things in the Pali cannon that are somewhat cryptic because of differences in culture, time and language and would be clearer to us in another dialect. But that's just the way things are. The words only roughly point to things. In regards to dhamma, sometimes you can point to it in the exact opposite way as it was refered to in the suttas, but you'll never see that if you only read the theory. Don't get hung up on words. In contrast to what I just said, don't abandon learning, reading/hearing and thinking about things also. That's part of the path too! The buddha said at varied contexts that considering things is the way to avoid suffering. And I'm sure having knowledge of things help.
I think that OP has many useful interests, very healthy and wholesome things, but one essential thing relating to the question was missing to me: look at one's own life. Feel what things feel like, observe how things go, what is the order of things, what are the charateristics of things. How things come into being, how things change, how things cease to be. Observe this in one's own life. Ponder such things. Read teachings, be it from the suttas or somewhere else and compare them to one's own experiences: where they seem to be accurate, where they seem to be false, when are they good and skilfull and when are they not. We need to consider things in this way. When in doubt it's good to read teachings and learn things, but it can only take us so far. Look at one's own experience and experiment, see how things feel like. Be patient and observe the way things are. Come up with one's own conclusions based on the observance of the way things happen in this very world and as soon as one can, reavaluate what one once believed. Always observe, and when you think you know then observe with double effort. This is the way to clear our doubts.
I still have many unskilfull habits in my mind and I don't know how much delusion. But to me that seems like a really good advice to follow

Metta