Uhummm... The vacuum advance should not have any effect on starting the engine.
Do you know where the initial timing is set? Also check the mechanical advance weights and springs, are these working?
When it comes to distributor advance and timing curves, set you initial first, (6-10 degree range) set the mechanical next so it starts to come in right off idle and gets to 30-32 degrees total by 2500-2800 RPM. The last thing is to "dial-in" the vacuum advance to give you good off-idle response and light load economy.
Remember, when you get back into the throttle at cruse, the vacuum advance drops-off and acts as a retard, the mechanical advance needs to be there behind it or the engine will go flat or bog.
Here is a link to more distributor recurving information:
http://www.dutra.org/doug/draft-webpage ... ibutor.htm
One thing you can try is to crank a lot of initial timing into it and see if that reduces the bog.
DD