Do you win by playing worse?

I've been improving fairly signficantly over the last year. What's interesting to me is that as time goes on, I find I'm making more moves that I see (both during the game and after in analysis) to be really bad moves.

I actually feel like I'm playing worse than I did a year ago. Yet, I'm beating people now that I was losing to last year, and my rating is up significantly.

Is this a common experience for an improving player? I'm sure that some of my bad moves are just that I'm more aware of what constitutes a good move, and so I can see the errors of my ways. But I also think I'm more frequently mis-applying various principles and ideas more frequently as I am more aware of various general concepts and so I have a tendency to use the wrong concept to guide my move selection and evaulation more frequently than when I had fewer ideas to juggle.

In many ways, the latter phenomenon really is irksome as I think that now I lose not because I simply didn't know what to do (and knew that I didn't know what to do) but rather now I lose because I thought I did know what to do!

What's worse, is now I often find that I'm winning games because I'm making the right move for all the wrong reasons. When going over my games with stronger players I find when I answer the "That's a good move, why did you play that?" question, after considering my answer I get something like "Hmmm, ok, well, the move is still good, but not for any of the reasons you just said" as a response.

I'm left feeling like a year ago I was losing more, but when I won it was because I actually saw deeper in the game than my opponent. Now when I win I feel it's because I got luckier than my opponent at guessing at the right moves.

It's really frustrating!

"I find I'm making more moves that I see (both during the game and after in analysis) to be really bad moves."

This is a crucial observation. You start realise that some moves you play are actually bad -> you got better that you now see this!!!

It honestly seems I'm making fewer of those these days.

As to if I still win . . . in aggregate I don't know that I do. I'll get a move I feel really good about (and later analysis proves to be the right idea) but I'll lose the game after screwing up something else later on.

Maybe as you improve you're beginning to notice more mistakes and errors on your part than you used to notice in the past

Well if you look back on your previous games, (before you had improved)  I think that you will notice your mistakes are due to a very poor calculation. Because you can begin to calculate further and see deeper into the lines, the chances for mistakes becomes more prominent. Your new "intuition" and skill now will prevent you from making a disastrous mistake. These little mistakes will make for an easy comeback, but seem premature or just plain stupid on reflection. 

Now of course this is just me rambling, I obviously have no place remarking on your skill or style of play, seeing as how I am rated much lower than you, but this is just my 2 cents (My low rating is due to some hastily played blitz games and my rash decision making, which i hope is based on my youth. I have discovered I absolutely SUCK at Blitz games.)

I like this topic because i believe it applies to me as well.  i find myself losing more, but i have improved very much over the last year.  I think an answer for my game play is simply a lacking middle game.  i read a book and learned a few new openings and starting playing them well.  but i got into situations like your example.  

you say you were making good moves but weren't sure why.  if i could guess i would say they you were probably getting set up better for your middle game by way of a good opening.  with pieces in solid positions rather than weak ones, i think inherently the moves will be better.  even if you don't see why.  or at least that is just my opinion as i also, am rated much lower than you....