that thought crossed my mind as well. However when it comes to wiring,

A. i am somewhat good at it as long as i have a wiring diagram and the wires are all the right color

B. i hate wiring, cant stand it, but its looking like i'm going to have to do something like that...

a crazy thought, is it possible the magnetic pick up went out in my distributor? therefore not telling the box when to spark therefore not telling the coil to spark? is there anyway to test this?