I've done a LOT of experiments with case lube. I've tried most of the commercial case lubes and I've tried a few of my own homemade versions.
For straight walled pistol brass, I use carbide dies, but still prefer a very small amount of case lube. I put a tube of Lee Case Lube into a spray bottle (available in the gardening aisle at Walmart) then I add 16 ounces of 91% isopropyl alcohol (available in the pharmacy aisle at Walmart). I cover the top with my thumb or a regular screw cap and shake until it's uniform with no blobs of case lube floating in alcohol. Don't screw in the sprayer cap until the case lube is distributed in the alcohol or a blob of case lube could plug the sprayer dip tube.
Shake before each use (OK to leave the sprayer attached at that point) and lightly mist the cases. I put them in a Rubbermaid container and shake them around. A little lube even makes it down inside the cases. Dump the cases on a cookie sheet (used only for reloading) and the alcohol quickly evaporates and leaves a very small amount of dry wax lube on the cases. They run through the progressive press like a dream. You shouldn't be able to see any lube on the cases. A couple of quick spritzes is all that's needed for 500 cases. You don't absolutely need to wait for the tiny bit of lube to dry before reloading.
I was using Imperial Sizing Wax for bottle neck rifle brass. It was the best of the commercial products. It worked well and was fairly easy to apply. Removing it wasn't too bad, but it was a bit sticky.
Then I tried full synthetic motor oil. It has excellent shear properties so I thought it might work well as a resizing lube. It's by far the best case lube I've ever used. Pour 1/4" of full synthetic oil (not synthetic blend) into the bottle cap and dip the neck. A little goes up inside the neck to lube the expander rod. Wipe the oil down the outside with your fingers as the brass is loaded into the press to be resized.
I was resizing .308 brass that had been fired in a machine gun. It needed a lot of resizing. I could lubricate every 20th case and didn't have any stuck brass. I was previously lubing every single case with Imperial Sizing Wax. In practice, I lube every tenth case with synthetic oil and the resizing force remains minimal.
Here's a cheesy video I made that shows the full synthetic oil used as case lube.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=THOL_S7Hngs
The case lube info starts at 4:30.
The synthetic oil is easy to clean off the cases because it's an oil and not a wax. You can wipe it off with a paper towel, but I greatly prefer to tumble it for 30 minutes. That cleans inside the case as well and results in very uniform results. Otherwise, some case necks may have more case lube in them than others, resulting in different friction when the bullet is starting to move, probably resulting in different ballistics which cause larger groups.
I use crushed walnut for all my tumbling. I'd worry that corn cob is more compressible and may tend to plug flash holes, but I haven't tried it so maybe that's an unfounded concern. I only have one tumbler, so it's all walnut shell media. I toss in a used dryer sheet or two to collect the black gunk (dirt, burned powder, burned primer, oxidized brass) and also to absorb the case lube. This makes my tumbling media last a VERY long time. It also helps that the synthetic oil is such an effective case lube that I use very little oil. There isn't a lot of oil to contaminate the tumbling media.
Watch the video if you can stand to hear my voice (I can't). It explains a lot of the more subtle aspects of what works for me. Maybe you'll find something that will work better for you.