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In my research for a story I have been amazed at the difficulty inventors had with the problem of mixing air and fuel for early piston engines. There are well over a hundred patents for various kinds of mixers before 1920. The reason those crude hit-and-miss engines were so popular was the poor performance of the throttle governed type. It was easier and the engine actually ran better to simply hold the exhaust valve open for a few revolutions when the speed got too high than to make a carb that mixed the same ratio of air and fuel at different air flow rates. I encountered a bizarre invention that switched a hit and miss engine to a different mixer after the first "hit" if the engine was running slow enough to "hit" more than once in succession. Having two mixers and a bunch of valve linkage was easier than making a single throttle governed carb. I was reminded of International Harvester's infamous "Flaming Four" that had seven carburetors on a four cylinder engine.
I recall watching films of WW I aircraft landing and hearing the engines sounding like they were cutting out. The reason, it turns out, is that it was so difficult to mixing air and fuel properly at different volumes that the throttle didn't have a "low" setting. To slow the engine down they had a switch that shut the ignition off on half the cylinders and another one to shut the ignition completely off - just to control engine speed.

Oh well, back to work. As you were.