Time to push it off a cliff and start over!

I went to the carb shop this morning to drop it off... the gal working there was pretty sure there were no vacuum leaks in the carb - she said that Edelbrocks hardly EVER have vacuum leaks above the base gasket, and my carb doesn't look like it had a lot of use, so she didn't suspect any worn bushings causing a vac leak. Based on my explanation of what happened when I restricted airflow to the primaries, she said it may be running too lean, and may need to be richened up... so she talked me out of paying them $200 for a rebuild, and sold me a set of metering rods instead to try to richen it up...

BTW.. I did get (and install) the plate that goes between the carb and intake manifold.. didn't seem to help much