Switching NEMA 17 stepper motor with arduino Uno and A4988 driver

If you think that is what I said you were mistaken. I talked about swapping over one coil winding. Nothing to do with direction.

What worked?

Sorry that makes no sense at all to me. By using a digital pin instead of an analogue pin, you make the whole process so much faster.

Yes use digital pins, not analogue ones.