Gosh, what can I say?
Ignition timing control over the whole operating spectrum of an engine is, well, a Black Art. Back in the days before electronic engine control systems, it was handled, usually, with a combination of a mechanical method, flyweights working against springs to advance timing as engine speed increases, and with vacuum, working on a diaphragm to advance/retard timing depending on engine load.
With stock production engines, the manufacturers had whole engineering departments working out how best to optimize performance/economy/driveability, and avoid destructive detonation, using mechanical and vacuum inputs into the distributor. With a modified engine, some of the solutions the manufacturer came up with may no longer be valid. Thus, it becomes the hot-rodder's task to "re-engineer" how the distributor responds to engine speed and vacuum inputs. This is why you hear hot rodders talking about "re-curving" distributors, which is changing the way the distributor revises timing based on engine speed.
Vacuum, of course, is another thing to consider. It throws in another variable which can be used, as the manufacturers do, to improve economy and driveability, but with a high-compression modified engine, if not done properly, it can also introduce a factor that can cause damage due to detonation (pinging).
Since vacuum advance gernerally doesn't come into play at wide-open throttle, racing engines typically forgo the use of vacuum advance altogether. In the case of racing engines, you find the maximum total advance your engine can tolerate, then fiddle with the mechanical advance mechanism in the distributor and the initial timing to achieve the optimum performance throughout the rev range without exceeding the maximum Total Advance.
If you peruse this string, you'll see that I've undertaken doing a highly modified 200-inch six-cylinder engine. In hindsight, I bit off way more than I could chew. I've had a lot of trouble getting my engine to run well, and it wasn't until Pat Brown got involved, I'll call him this forum's Primary Guru, that I even got this thing to be driveable at all! He did a modification to my carburetor that turned out to be "The Breakthrough". Among other things, Pat had recommended that, as with a racing engine, I should forgo using the vacuum advance. However, my engine, though highly modified, has a pretty moderate compression ratio. Because of that, I felt it was worth the risk to try to reintroduce vacuum advance to improve some issues I was having that corresponded to those mentioned in the article I referenced.
The result seems to be very favorable. My "overheating-at-idle" problem is greatly diminished, and yet, as far as I can tell, I'm still not having any issue with detonation.

Whew! I hope I didn't bore you too badly.
Thank you for asking!
Are you sorry you did?
(To paraphrase a famous Dr Seuss line, is your brain numb now?)