Beyond Frustrated - Wont start/stay running

So... I got good news and I got bad news....

First the good news. After changing out the gear, getting another coil (since I stripped one of the posts on the other new one I got), and some screwing around I finally got this thing started! Which was nice. However this leads me into the bad news.

Bad news:
So it is still sputtering. This car always sputtered since I got it on the road in 2008. However the sputter would only be at idle, now it is doing it under acceleration, cruising speed etc. I wanted to get a video of it but with the way the last few weeks have been I figured getting it running was a good place to stop for the night. So I will try and explain what was going on:

So I have the dwell set at approximately 43 degrees, my initial timing with the vacuum advance connected is 15 deg BTC, idles at 720 RPM and I was running about 21 inches of mercury at idle (vacuum gauge was plugged onto the choke release port). Now if you go to the tail pipe you can hear the sputter in the exhaust. It is not cyclic, but random. Which tells me it is not one specific cylinder. So while under the hood and taking in all the information I can, I saw when the car sputtered (this is all at idle) the RPM's would bounce up to 750 all the way to 820-850. During the sputter the vacuum gauge would dip from 21 to about 20.8-20.5 inches of mercury. Also during the sputter I would see the timing jump from 15 deg BTC to approximately 20-30 deg ATC (This is a guess since I only have the stock timing mark on the damper and timing chain cover). What would cause this issue?

Thinking about this while I am typing I kind of over looked this fact with my sleep deprived mind that the vacuum advance was not plugged and I may actually have a lot less initial timing than what I stated above. Which kind of makes sense... I almost got rid of my idle sputtering issue before by increasing timing (however I never had this sputter issue while driving until now). My old man thinks its carburetor. The carb was rebuilt back in 2007, and has about 20000-25000 miles on it. However knowing what I do now, The cleaning I put it through may not have been adequate (which was spraying the living hell out of it with carb cleaner and scrubbing it in a parts washer. Which neither really address the issue off cleaning out all the air tubes that probably have 50 some years of build up in them. Dont know for sure if that is the case, but just an idea) and the ethanol in the fuel probably isnt helping matters.

So I should probably retry taking all these values with the vacuum advance blocked off, but does anyone have any idea on why this car is sputtering at idle and now under load? If my description doesnt make sense and you would like a video, please let me know... I would try my best to get one made tonight.