Ok, i'll admit i'm a lot better with the 175's but 120psi from a stroker aint so bad and it only went up 10 with the oil so i'd say the top end isnt where the problem lies.
My 175 was performing a lot like this, got a couple of things for you to try.
Take off the LH cover and with the engine running at whatever its happy to on tick over try and blast a good amount of wd or similar behind the flywheel, use one of the straw things that always gets lost, and see if it affects the idle speed.
While you have the WD out soak everything carb side, the rubbers everything again monitoring the idle speed.
If that makes no difference then get a glass of water and dip the crankcase/gearbox breather in it and see if you have a constant steam of bubbles, OR it tries to suck the water up. Finally check the gearbox oil i would expect it to smell of fuel if i'm right.
I would bet that one of the above tests will have an effect, everything you have listed above is what you would expect for a crank seal failure. Hard to start,high idle, 4stroking (thats the spotty running at 3-5000) the backfire. If the tests above prove to have no effect then it may be a leak somewhere else but that wouldn't generally give all the stated symptoms just a select few.