Well I have an update kind of, but some clarification, too. The engine ran fine, sans ticking or misfiring, up until the day I broke that rocker arm bolt. After that, since I switched back to the Holley carb and repaired the rocker arm bolt, it's been acting up.

I am running a combo that, straight from Hughes' collective mouth, "would be fine". I am running 1278 retainers, 1110 springs, and stock locks with the stock lifters, pushrods, rockers, and valves. My valves shouldn't be bottoming out if they're still straight, as not only am I running RHS heads which have a larger dome height than stock, but I am running Speed Pro pistons with four valve reliefs milled into the face.

The minor update was that yesterday I decided to clean up and reinstall the Edelbrock Performer carb I am borrowing. It's a 1405 with non-adjustable floats. I slapped it on and the car not only doesn't idle rough anymore, much of the ticking went away. Even more, the misfire at 1200+RPM is only very slight right now, probably due to the spark plug wires (I'd guess).

What's left of the ticking I can attribute much of it to a leaky exhaust system. I have been a bad boy and never got my exhaust system welded up; it's still clamped together. I figure that I can live with the subtle ticking right now until I get the exhaust welded up, and then I will re-evaluate there. I drove it around yesterday a bit, and I found that it's running easily three times better than it was the day before.

I still have a lot of diagnosis to do on the wires, the misfire, the valvetrain noise which is there but subtle, but I'm feeling a lot better about it. It really helps when you have working parts on your car!