SoftwareSerial 7-E-1 problem

Did you replace the tunedDelay with the version with volatile declarations too?

/* static */ 
inline void SoftwareSerial7E1::tunedDelay(volatile uint16_t delay) { 
  volatile uint8_t tmp=0;

  asm volatile("sbiw    %0, 0x01 \n\t"
    "ldi %1, 0xFF \n\t"
    "cpi %A0, 0xFF \n\t"
    "cpc %B0, %1 \n\t"
    "brne .-10 \n\t"
    : "+r" (delay), "+a" (tmp)
    : "0" (delay)
    );
}