Ways to make my bone stock 305 more reliable?

[98Murray]

I have a bone stock '86 C10 with a 305 and all the emissions components. It is NOT a CA truck (if that makes a difference) and legally to register and inspect it it only needs safety equipment. Is there a reliability benefit to getting rid of this equipment? When I first got the truck a lot of the vacuum lines that ran to all these things were bad and I quite some time tracking down and fixing all the leaks. The trucks runs OK now aside from the non adjustable quadrajet giving me fits every now and then. I know I can drill out the plugs to access the adjusters but I am honestly just thinking about ditching the quadrajet and a lot of the emissions components for a more simple and reliable setup but, is it worth it? I mean, the truck runs ok with all of it on there and I really hate to mess with something that aint broke but at the same time I don't want it to break down on me because of this aging equipment.

Also I would like to simplify and dress up the engine bay. What are some good ways to do this? I would love to ditch the 4 belts for one serpentine belt if I could. I also have some long tube headers laying around that I may want to put on it. What are yalls thoughts??