1.54 V2 having contrast issues after <1M cycles

[nonchip]

I've been using the esp8266 universal driver, official web firmware, with a 1.54V2 screen, current switch set to position A as instructed.

after about a year of full-refreshes every few minutes (calculated less than a million cycles, so should be perfectly within its lifetime according to waveshare spec), i've noticed massive degradation of contrast: black pixels being too white next to white pixels, especially near the edges, unless the black area touches the top AND bottom edges.

so a fully white screen and a fully black screen both look just like new, but a checkerboard pattern (this is supposed to be 4x4px perfectly black and white squares all over) looks like this:

a vertical full-height box (even a single line) will also show up nicely, while a horizontal full-width box (which was what the display spent most of its time displaying during that year of usage) will become a gradient with the white bleeding into it.

[nonchip]

if i physically press on the on-glass driver die, the refreshes are way faster and the problem seems to go away, could it just be detached from the glass substrate? is there any way i could fix this using eg a hot air gun to carefully heat the chip while pressing on it?

Update: this seems to only happen if i touch it with my finger (and not very reliable), tried clamping it with a piece of rubber and it didn't help, might be a capacitive effect too?