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Jeesh, Ed, paragraphs 1. and 2. above sound like the clinical definition of a rabbit hole and I have no doubt that you will enjoy every minute of exploring the innermost recesses thereof.
And you will almost certainly emerge, a few weeks from now, with a much better running engine.
I'm only suggesting you look for spark scatter and maybe note how much there is (and where on the curve) before you venture below. Could help establish a baseline before you start messing around with all that other stuff.
My own 009 clone said 'Pertronix' on the side, but I think Pertronix make only the spark module, and that the whole mechanical body comes out of the same Chinese factory that they all do.
Whenever I would set the advance, I'd see the timing mark at idle and from about 2500 rpm on up, but in between, it would literally disappear - no timing mark at all.
Thing is, even so, the engine never really ran poorly. It was pretty smooth, didn't pop or cough, and transitioned pretty well. But if I tried to hold a steady engine speed at, say, 2000 rpm, there was a little, nagging miss that wouldn't go away. I also found I could set the mixture/volume screws until it just purred, but the next time out I'd have to set them again to get the same degree of smoove.
I swapped in the basic CB Magnaspark II, and the timing mark suddenly appeared across the whole rev range, and the nagging miss was gone, too.
Don't want to belabor the point, but if you're getting serious about getting dialed in, here's another data point that might help - and it's pretty easy to check.
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