I once had a cheese where the curd wouldn't shrink when I cooked it and I was running out of time, so I pressed it and the results sound much like your's. I cut the curd again after pressing it for a day, then put it in a kettle in a sink of hot water to warm the curd up. It shrunk during that process and I re-pressed it. That colby turned out really good, actually.
I've found that many recipe books and recipes on the Internet have some differences to them and my theory is that we are all in slightly different environments and have slight differences to our milk, rennet, cultures, etc. So what works for me in my house in west central Wisconsin with milk from my non-grazed (poor!) cow, with clabber and yogurt cultures, and rennet from my source just might not work for someone else in a different part of the country with difference sources for their ingredients.
I know there is a lot of science behind cheesemaking, but the differences create nuances that can't be replicated everywhere every time a cheese is made. It's the art that attracts me.