I understand quite well. The last carb engine I messed with was a '79 Mustang 5.0. It came with a 2 barrel carb, I pulled that manifold and carb and installed a Edelbrock manifold and Carter 650 four barrel. That, with the Comp Cams 268 cam was a stunning improvement. I did a few other tweaks, too.
My current engine is a TBI and it's pretty lame. I'm thinking about how to imrprove it, but a carb isn't in the picture. I'll see how much investment it will take to do the improvements versus an engine swap.