Master Gunner wrote:It is possible that Paul's beard acts as a Phail capacitor (Phailpacitor?), which builds up a store of Phail particles, allowing him to lend the ring out to Matt and maintain his abilities.
This would also explain how most of his madness comes in spurts, as when his beard builds up to a full phail-charge, it must be discharged. So his regular wackiness is caused by him slowly releasing phail-particles from his beard, and when he forgets, or it builds up too quickly, it causes severe phail-overdose. This would explain some of the difference between super-crazy Paul (Installation Anxiety), and mildly-crazy Paul (All The Little People (I know, it's not conclusively linked to Phail, but bear with me).
So having the ring allows a certain level of abilities (teleportation, anti-douchebaggery), but without some way of building up and directing a concentrated phail-burst, the ring alone will not allow Matt to match some of Paul's craziest endeavors.
This goes well with how Paul would have to "cool off" from prolonged exposure, and how he was able to appear in this video without having the ring: he was expending the last of the Phail-build-up in his beard.
How do we explain Paul's beard functioning as a Phailpacitor though? If it's based purely on facial hair, why just facial hair? All hair on the body is pretty much identical, so in theory Geoff with his rocker hair could out-Phail store Paul.
I personally view the waxing and waning of his madness bouts in reverse to you. I think he gets cured of PRP and then it slowly builds up again, making him crazier and crazier until it is again PRP, he is again cured, and again it builds up.
The Phailinite Ring is constant, Paul's madness is cyclic. I think it's the Phailinite Ring that allows his Phail abilities as normal, but the exposure to it yields his madness, as his brain is exposed over time he grows more mad until we hit PRP stage again. That's the simplest and most rational explanation.
(I know, I'm just being stupid now 
