UPDATE: Problem SOLVED!!!
After about a year of racking my brain on this one, getting access to a REAL scanner helped me to FINALLY figure this one out.
First thing that we discovered was that my TPS and MAF were just fine and within spec. My brand new upstream o2 sensor, however, was reading lean and was not oscillating at all. No fuel. Makes sense why it was having such a hard time starting and had so many dead spots in the throttle. I knew that I changed out my pump to a brand new Walbro GSS342 but also that I reused the filter sock because I forgot to order the whole kit. So I cracked open the fuel tank to check on the filter and, low and behold, the fuel pump to fuel sender hose was all cracked to hell.
Swapped out the hose with a spare piece of hose that I had laying around and voila, car started right up and ran and idled just fine. BINGO!!!!
Throttle response was normal and idle was rock solid.
Just put in an order request to Mr. Greg V for a new hose (17551-31U00) because I am pretty sure the hose I used was not fuel line and I KNOW it isn't gonna last long.
Anyways, PROBLEM SOLVED! I hope none of you ever run into this issue.
Cheers!
Branden
aka hawaiiaNX