Pictures of suspect valve...

[Big Bopper]

Here is another picture...I think there not getting threw because of the dail-up in my garage...
Anyway....

Guys,... maybe you could help me...Here's my story....
I bought this winter beater (96'Chevy 4X4,350 Vortec,auto) Nothing but problems..It started to tick after a long road trip it's symtoms were it would only tick when it came up to temp.if you brought the rpm's up the tick seems to go away...and when your on the hwy it only ticks when you let off the gas ....
Then right after the road trip it started to miss on one cyl and backfire threw the exhaust.So,... I figured it was something in the valve train by the way I don't really know what I'm doing either...
Like a idiot I failed to do simple checks..ie...bad plug...plugLead...ect...I took the heads off and apart..I know ,I know, Bad Idea right... But I failed to find any major problems the only problem was one valve stem had a little wear on the end (see pic) and a hell of a lot of carbon I'll attach a new post called carbon pics...
#1 Would the damaged valve (exhaust valve by the way..) stem like that cause a tick?
#2 Would carbon cause the miss?
#3 Why do I buy Chevys?