Thanks for all the feedback everyone, sorry for the late reply. Just gettting back on here now. Happy Friday!
After getting some feedback from a couple of sources the other day I installed the pads. Having just finished a caliper rebuild along with changing out the pads and deglazing the rotor, I tried the zip tie trick to help finish bleeding.. The brake pads themselves felt pretty good after some bed-in stops, and I like the rough bite I get off the pads. Still cant get a firm lever though.. Pretty stuck atm. Might need to rebuild the master cylinder or replace the oem lines (This is a used 2000 EX250, probably never had the lines swapped).
However I'm having trouble seeing how it could be anything but air in the lines. Before I rebuilt the nasty gunked up front caliper the brakes were plenty firm when you pressed the lever.. But I did stupidly let the MC get completely dry when removing the line from the caliper, so I started with a dry MC when refilling the system. Took me using a long hose on the caliper's bleeder valve and making a vacuum with my mouth to get the fluid moving again.
After this I went on to try conventional bleeding, the zip tie trick twice (tapping the lines etc.), bled at the MC banjo bolt (which definitely had air in it, first bleed splattered all over the place), and replacing with fresh fluid after the zip tie trick to help remove the contaminated fluid. Even tried reverse bleed method with a syringe/hose, but the syringe could have been better for this application. So I'm up for buying one of those big animal feeder ones and trying it again.. My first attempt at the reverse bleed got me a lot closer to having a good lever, but still no luck :/. After the last attempt at the zip tie trick I still only have like 40-60% of what should be there. Haven't measured the rotor or anything yet, but it looks fine and I haven't had any brake wobble since purchasing this bike. Hoping to get this done soon, considering buying a vacuum bleeder and trying that next.