philosophy on why my car hasn't been starting... critics welcome

[S13squirrel]

Okay so my car has been occasionally not starting, but I was able to push-start the car. Once running, the car is fine. So I just replaced the starter this morning, and it didn't change anything. What seems to happen every time is that the engine will turn over and seem to fire for about one second, and then it dies. After this, the engine does not fire at all. It won't start again until the next day or so. So my buddy and I checked the plugs, all four wires are giving good spark. The only thing is that some of the wires seemed to give off a dimmer, more yellow spark (we did the old trick of putting a screwdriver into the plug wire, while putting the screwdriver shaft near some grounded metal, and check for a spark while trying to start the car). Then we checked the plugs, they were fine other than being a bit wet with gasoline moisture. And we took off the distributor cap and rotor and scraped the deposits off of both. The car still did not start after all this, so we push-started it just fine, and the car has been running fine ever since.

So here is what I think:
1- spark was weak, maybe due to cap and rotor deposits
2- starter turned engine fine, but then it could not fire well enough to run on its own, so it stalled
3- after engine dies, and while turning starter a second time, there is leftover fuel in the cylinders
4- weak spark cannot overcome wet spark plugs, engine does not start
5- engine starts fine when plugs have had a chance to dry
6- engine push starts because momentum of the car keeps the engine turning long enough for the cylinders to fire
7 when the car does start, there is a puff of smoke for a second, presumably burning off the fuel that had the engine flooded

Criticisms and contributions are welcome, as of now I plan to get a new rotor.