I don't think I wasted any money. My theory is that a chain of events began with the fuel distributor sitting for a year and a half with old gas in it. That led to bad flow patterns in the injectors. Several months of super rich exhaust effectively killed a converter that was already coated with burned motor oil. Freestyler went through this same scenario with his car.
Moral of the story? Old/dirty gas and fuel distributors don't mix!