Now here's another funky bit. Sometimes taking a break from a game and coming back to it weeks, months or even years later will make it feel like you've never been better before. And the numbers or scores might validate it.

I've personally experienced this with:

QuakeWorld in the early 2000s, where my shaft hitscan rate went from low 20s to mid 30s and my movement control got even more fluid. Factor here might have been a PC upgrade
WoW around 2008 -> 2010 where I went from struggling in arena to hit the lowest rank to duelist. Factor here might have been my aging reflexes starting to compensate more strategy instead
Enter the Gungeon from 2013 -> 2015 where I was struggling to get past the first few biomes to maxing out the whole game and attempting streaks with 9 curse and turbo on. This definitely came after watching a few streamers trying to do speed runs and their movement and situational awareness of the mob patterns inspired me.

I've also revisited these games since, again, and definitely only gotten worse at them.