Very interesting thought!
I clarify (chelate, in fact) once a month. I just got my home water analysis back, however, and the report was "VERY HARD WATER." I'm going to get a shower filter and see if anything changes (DCs work better, moisture lasts longer, etc.). That could definitely be a culprit in my case.
If I weren't able to get lasting moisture with the CRN treatment, I would be quite, quite concerned about whether something else was going on. Finally achieving lasting moisture from a DC has allayed a lot of my concern. There still could be something else going on, though, I'll agree.
The following experience I had has influenced me: One day I went to the salon for a trim. The products she used on my hair took my hair from moisturized and luxurious-feeling to VERY rough and dry feeling. It took me WEEKS of conditioning and trying all sorts of things to get rid of that very rough feeling. This made me think: Conditioning is cumulative! My hair just kept slowly getting better deep treatment after deep treatment. So I'm wondering if I don't DC frequently enough, or if I was chelating too often before. I've scheduled chelating for just once a month at this time and will see what effect that has.
I've been on my natural hair journey for about 3 years, and I'm arm-pit length at the longest layers. I've had two major trims, I believe. One was because I had NO IDEA that my natural hair would really need trims. Naive, silly, unlearned, I know. But my reasoning was: I'm not putting heat on it, and it's natural!
Now that I know better, and now that I know that SSKs mean I should get a trim somewhat often, I'm prepared to be better about it so that I never have to have a major trim again, hopefully. I'm also detangling WAY LESS OFTEN and WAY MORE HEALTHILY, so that should protect my ends and result in more retention.
I'm going to revisit a handful of DCs over the next month to see if they perform better for me now after my major trim and with less chelating.