I not sure if poly locks would be quicker than the stock rocker nuts, but as far as adjustment goes I have always done mine 1 valve at a time and with 1 guy turning the motor over it shouldn't take but a couple minutes adjusting valves.

Other suggestions:
put a petcock in the block drain with hose for quicker draining of the block when ready to do head swap.

I just reread through the entire post and saw that you intend to run an after market balancer if the crank is drilled for a harmonic balancer bolt, you could hone an old harmonic balancer so that it will just slip on & off by hand. It might also be nice to see if there is any gain by the aftermarket balancer.

Possible couple other tasks,
Often I hear so much about these Edelbrock carbs and how people claim they are so much better, personally I dont think they so and neither does my local Dyno guy as he usually gets another 6+hp with a holley type carb, it would be nice to see a apples to apples swap of a holley vs edelbrock if time prevails.

You are getting a DUI distributor and it will be ?? recurved, it would be nice to see a stock HEI distibutor in there as well to campare that against it.