"in five months ive played or studied 50+ hours a week:"
This doesn't give enough information -- HOW did you do that? What did the studying entail? How much passion did you put into it? How enthusiastic were you about the logic of the positions you were looking at? When you were learning a complicated position, where you fascinated or frustrated by its difficulty? If you were reading a chess book, were you actively involved, trying to guess the moves, or were you just passively reading the material without testing your understanding of it? It's not just about how much time you spent on it, it's about what you were actually doing during this time.
People often use the idea that one can spend a large quantity of time and not get better as an argument for the "talent or not" theory. What they often don't consider, is the quality of that time for those who failed.
Forget what I said about getting 'better' - all this is premised on the idea that slider-to-the-right = stronger. My Mac "Chess" program - different from MacChess, I gather - must be very weak. At .75 strength I'm getting mate in 19 moves of often reckless play. It may be good for my confidence, but overall strategy and tactics? Pshaw.
- regular but not too intensive doses of theory, when I feel stuck. Because I am so ignorant I can pick sources almost at random - from the Internet or at the used bookstore. Reading about the importance of occupying the center and keeping pieces mobile means more to me if I've already had some experience. My mistakes make the advice more relevant.
- starting out low on a computer application that probably sucks - the Chess that came on my Mac. It openings are very formulaic - at a given level it will start the same every time. So I would study a little about that particular opening, but again, not too intensively.
- when I started winning at low levels, I'd make a screenshot of the game log. Then I would play similar games multiple times, from black and white. Sometimes I'd abort after a few moves and start over. Some kind of visual or muscle memory came into play. I didn't so much memorize sequences as play a little animation in my head.
- once I was very comfortable at a level I would noodge the slider up in the tiniest increment I could manage, and start repeating the process. Again, at a given level it plays the same opening ALL THE TIME. If I was white I had more flexibility. I'd try to duplicate a game I won at a lower level and look for where the computer started branching out with better decisions.
Sometimes I think I beat the computer because my moves are irrational, from its point of view. But the stakes are low. If something turns into a bloodbath I just start over, riffing a little on the sequence. Once I've done that the theory sticks better.
So I go back and forth a lot, reading, puzzles, playing slowly, playing fast. I haven't been playing people, online or OTB and I worry a little that the few skills I've developed will have to be redeveloped, when dealing with a board and actual pieces as opposed to a bird's-eye view on a keyboard and a real person.
It seems to help that usually I am not consciously trying to memorize. It also helps to be underemployed.
Finally, I'm just accepting my level of play, for now. I used to play tournament Scrabble and won lower-seeded divisions - "the cream of the crap." Other people worked much harder at it. I found a level where I made a decent sparring partner for a better player. So that's pretty much where I am with chess, but the basic deal is, having fun and staying loose seem to help me, and the computer doesn't care how often I start over or retract a move. My reward comes from getting better, not from being good.