... Unless you mean that you've been erroneously running two ethernet cables between each of your switches all this time simply because you didn't understand how they worked...

If you see an ethernet hub with an "uplink" port, that just means it's an older hub without auto-negotiation, and "uplink" is the one port without the TX/RX wires crossed so you can route it to a patch panel. But even then you don't need two cables to connect it to another hub, you still just need the one cable...