Yes, retorquing is a maintenance item on the 7M though that a lot of people tend to forget about..
The best advice to a MKIII owner is... maintain the damn thing properly! If you ever wonder why they are so cheap right now its mostly because the people who really like them are usually very young (at least.. the ones I have found) and are just learning the pitfalls of poor maintenance (which is fairly expensive). Most of the oldsters pass by the MKIII as being impractical and overly expensive. I bought it knowing full well it was going to cost me a fair chunk of change to get to where I wanted it. And.. before you jump on me for the "young" remark.. let me point out.. its a super cheap sports car which is what attracts the younger crowd. The people who kill the car initially are usually not young...
From what I have found over the past few years is that most BHG's come from people doing the head gasket themselves. This is not like a typical head that you would redo, the other engines seem to have more leeway on error. For the 7M if you dont have the block and head surfaces lapped correctly (the intial BHG usually corrodes the block and cannot be ignored), it wont matter what you torque it at... it will fail again.
The bulk of MKIII's I go look at as potential purchases are pretty well junked and the owners are usually shocked when I point out where and why (most get a little annoyed.. lol). I would guess one out of 10 (that number may be very high) is worthy of building. My car should have been junked, but I chose to stick it out regardless of cost because I had no other options nearby. I wanted a MKIII, not a MKIV... and mine was the cleanest I could find in the area. (of course.. 20,000.00 later.. Rodel puts his up for sale.. sigh...)
The other interesting chunk of info is, I have found that most people who have no idea what the car is "truly" about end up trying to get rid of it after the first 6 months. Thats generally when they find out how much it costs to redo quarter panels, wheel wells, engines, transmission.. etc.. etc..
The MKIII is 19-25 years old (depending on your year). Consider it an antique.. even though its got the body of a gorgeous woman..