I was going through the thread (briefly), sorry to see your troubles ...
Your fuel line looks "under stress" with all the angles, you can loosen that bolt on the carb and turn the connector facing more down to make fuel line with filter into one curved line (attached pic of my setup).
Points (contacts) must be clean (tiny shaving of metal or grain of sand can get in between and screw timing big time), and they should contact each other with flat spot. I would not shy away from filing them a bit if needed.
To check timing (based on my experience with other bikes) you should be able to turn crankshaft few degrees back and forth of the mark and contacts should engage/disengage as mark passes. With ignition on and spark plug out and connected you should see the spark (do not put spark against the opening or it may ignite fuel mixture).
Also, the bike has mechanism to advance timing as rpm goes up (those springs with some weights behind the contact plate), they should be clean, oiled, and whole mechanism should work. It can get stuck in advanced position at high rpm and cause bike to die at lower rpms (if it does not return back).
Just some thoughts... hope it helps.