340 Build Spec's
Carbs are a very much a personal preference thing. I have heard just as many people complain about all the brands for all the same reasons. What ever carb you select you better plan on doing some tuning (more than just turning the idle mixture screws) to get the most out out of it or you won't likely be happy.
I believe the reason for the 4160 Holley was it had a CARB exemption for that car which made it legal.
FWIW, I still have the 600 CFM 4160 on my 360. I had to go down from the stock #69 primary jets to 65's to get the mixture close. Still using the red pump cam but have it in the #2 postion for a little more initial squirt. The carb seems happiest with the silver spring in the secondaries (the next softer causes a slight bog when the secondaries open and the next stiffer doesn't seem to run as hard). The idle screws do not have much effect so I think I need to open the secondary stop a wisker so I can close down the primaries some. I have about 14" Hg idle vacuum so I want to go up to an 8 or 9 power valve to see if I can get rid of that last bit of tip in hesitation. The interesting thing was the article with the 383 and 4160 as they tuned that carb they wound up with pretty much the same settings as I have by using my butt dyno and reading the plugs. They did do some custom work to the secondary metering plate to richen the secondaries.