Opinions on spreadbore carburetors

Static compression and cam timing go hand-in-hand, one is not a "crutch" for the other... the compounded effect of having both higher compression AND a longer-duration cam is greater than the sum of the two changes separately. Increase the compression without changing the cam, yeah you'll get a fractional increase in torque over the entire rev range. Change to a bigger cam without increasing the compression, you'll basically just trade off low-end torque for upper-end power. But do both together, and the gains are staggering. The increased combustion speed and improved expansion ratio of a high-compression engine actually helps the cylinders scavenge exhaust and pull in fresh intake charge which becomes critical as cam duration/overlap increases.

An engine will only make as much torque at a certain speed as it can, meaning it doesn't matter how big or small the carb throttle bores are, the engine will only pull in as much air/fuel as it can use. Smaller carb primaries help with transient conditions i.e. opening the throttle from closed; once the throttle is opened and the engine is pushing the car under load all that affects performance from that point on is the engine itself (compression, cam, cubes etc.) Spread bore carbs like the ThemoQuad are more "crisp" and responsive when opening the throttle compared to square-bore but they won't actually increase the steady-state torque output at lower engine speeds unless the square-bore carb it's being compared to is too big to allow sufficient airspeed through the boosters.