Thanks!
I'm considering a change to the crank mechanic where the first crank tick is a direction "hint". The background grid (or maybe the row/column, haven't decided) will animate in the direction it will eventually move the color to, and the second crank tick will commit the change.
This will allow you to see if you're going in an unintended direction and allow you to back out if needed.
For your particular wobbly crank issue, I was thinking a long press on the A/B buttons to do the same thing as the crank.