My chrome holley mechanical hv pump has been serving me well for 4 years. So I don't know what's "junk" about them. Never ran out of fuel with it at WOT. 10psi of fuel pressure is too much for a carb. That much fuel pressure may overwhelm a needle and seat in a carb, flooding the poop out of it. My mech holley is supposed to be a 7.5psi pump, and my thermoquad likes it just fine.

First thing's first. Like was suggested, your distributor is an issue. #1 you want your distributor recurved. Stock distributor's usually have too much advance and they take too long to get all the advance to come in. Contact a place like FBO and have them recurve your distributor for you or sell you one curved to your needs. Other option is to buy an adjustable one and do it yourself.

#2 is your carbs. Professionally rebuild doesn't mean jack squat when it comes to how well they are tuned. Sure the rebuilder could have done a very nice job of rebuilding the carbs, but it's still your job to tune them, and 6-pack carbs are notoriously difficult to tune. I would either take it to a chassis dyno and have the guy there tune the car or invest in a wideband o2 setup and tune it myself. You need to have some way of knowing what's going on there.

You have a mild 440, a mild cam and mild gears in a heavy car. Expect performance to reflect that. That said, you should still be doing a heck of a lot better than 16's. I'd think more like low-mid 14's maybe touching 13's on a very very good run?