Still think you may need to seek qualified, professional help, but with that said:
First time I've heard about the revving up high at idle, takes me right back to a bad ISC/IAC motor. What happens when you try to run it with the TPS unplugged? I read these motors run a little high until engine temp comes up, then drops to normal, but lots of issues with continued high or fluctuating idle speeds, usually related to ISC/IAC.
Have you taken a can of starter fluid or similar and sprayed around your intake gaskets, throttle body, brake booster vac line, and vacuum line connections etc? If you have a bad vacuum leak you'll get a change in engine speed at the point of contact of the spray.
As far as the timing, you could verify everything is lined up mechanically, engine not running, crank TDC#1/camshaft marks/distributor/rotor pointing to firewall (at visual #2 position, which is really #1)
Edit: since you are at your wits end, lets have an old-school adventure:
-Clean the base of your distributor and the surrounding block.
-Mark an index line from the distributor base out to the block. (chalk, sharpie, paint marker, etc.)
-Loosen the distributor clamp just enough so that you can turn the distributor with one hand.
-Find the diagnostic plug for your timing and ground it. Look it up, but I think it is in the harness on the firewall somewhere under the wiper motor.
-If needed, get a helper to start the engine, (don't press the gas ha ha) slowly turn the distributor up to 10 degrees in either direction. Picture the top of the distributor in the 360 circle when looking down.
See what happens to the idle. Advancing the distributor in the direction of rotation should increase the idle a little, retarding in the opposite direction should drop it back a little. Too far advanced will start to cause rougher/skipping engine after max idle is reached. Too far retarded will stumble and stall after lowest idle is reached.
In the old days, when we didn't have access to a timing light, we used this method along with a vacuum gauge to set the timing. Generally we'd turn it (the distributor) towards max idle speed, and/or highest vacuum, engine just starting to skip then back it down about 5 degrees or so and tighten the clamp.
After all this fooling around, if nothing is found, then return the distributor to your original mark, tighten clamp, unplug diagnostic ground, and you are back to square one, and you have verified the timing was ok, or really off the mark.
If you find the timing was off really bad, you could adjust the distributor (advance it) to the max idle, then bring it back down until there is no spark knock (detonation) when driving, if you get that far.
All of this is useless unless you ground the proper connector to remove computer control from the timing.
It sounds like until you get a reliable smooth idle, it's not worth pursuing the pressing the gas problem.
(end edit)
Let's not assume since you checked an item once that it isn't still bad. These mysteries can be really frustrating. I've had times where I had to start over from scratch, take out the legal pad, and start writing down each step of troubleshooting, because I would make assumptions, but when I wrote it down, and read over each step, then sometimes I would see things I hadn't thought of before.
