Sputtering randomly
 

Well, here's a pic of what happened a few days ago.It was barely running, as you probably guessed. I put a new a cap and rotor on and now sometimes it decides to run rough for a little bit, then it'll clear up and run good. It's very random when it acts up. I smell lots of gas and it backfires alot when it happens. It's crazy how it happens and then clears up. I wonder if I might have fouled some sparks or if there's more to it. What do you guys think?

Since you had such an electrical meltdown inside the distributor (flying sparks and smoke), your optical reader could have gotten hazed in the process.

Wouldn't that cause it to throw a trouble code? Everything on that side of the metal shield looked completly clean. There wasn't any traces of anything

Have you checked for an error code? I just changed my unvented opti to a vented one. The engine was running like crap, and I had a pulse signal error code stored, even though my service light wasn't on. Runs great now! I figured since having to dig so deep just to get to the opti, might as well replace it with something better.
Part of the problem with the unvented opti, in addition to normal internal wear (or abnormal in your case), is that the optical reader can get crudded up. The reader acts as a crank sensor, and sends a signal to the ECM telling which cylinder is about to fire, a fraction of a second before your rotor hits that cylinders firing point. If the reader has crud on it, it can give a false reading, intermittent reading, or no reading to the ECM, which will mess up your ignition timing.

I actually had a bad opti and this one was only a month old when it crapped out. I was getting two codes before i put the new one on. I had to drive it for a couple days before i got it off and saw the destroyed cap so I figure everything got gas-washed.......Here's an example of what it does. Tonight i got in it and it started great, idle was up since it was "choked" to get warm. Once it started to get warm it started running rough. You can smell the gas. It backfired and sputtered for a few minutes then cleared right up on the way back home. You can feel, and hear it surging trying to clear up. Usually once i turn it off for a few minutes and back on i don't have any trouble. That's why i was thinking the plugs or maybe a sensor sending more gas to it when the motor doesn't need choked anymore.