Why is the oil pan so hard?

Slowly bolting everything back on my '65 273 and finally got to the oil pan. Is it just me, or will it be this hard to remove in the future?

I had to unbolt the exhaust everywhere and slide it back, plus disconnect the left torsion bar to drop the exhaust. My second pass on the torsion - exhaust deal. Also had to jack up the engine, even though I put in new thick '65 motor mounts. The oil pan then cleared the tranny w/ nothing to spare while pressed against the K-frame. This was after I pushed the engine as far back the mounts allow. Of course, I scratched the new paint on multiple parts and must go back w/ a tiny brush to make purty.

My problems may be because my exhaust isn't ideal - single exhaust and right side crosses over in front of the tranny. I don't see how else one would plumb it, nor any way a combined exhaust could drop out past the torsion bars. This argues for a dual exhaust in the future, except only 1 notch in my transmission support and don't want to lose power steering.

I am used to an easily removed oil pan. That was true in my '69 Slant 6, '65 Newport 383, and my newer cars which don't even require pulling the steering link. It is nice to be able to inspect bearings, recover wedding rings, or even for an in-car re-ring job. It looks like my Dart is so packed most engine jobs are "first remove engine" aka the Haynes manuals.

How far should the factory distributor sit from the firewall. I guess ~1/2" since they made a recess for it. I don't think my tranny mount locates it since I feel broken rubber in there.

If you read my rant this far, a useful hint. An easy way to jack up the engine, is to place a 1/2" solid rod (2' long I recall) in the hole in the bottom of the block on the front left. This hole is outside the oil pan. Place a floor jack under the rod. The rod passes thru a triangular opening in the K-frame, which helps secure it. I wonder if Chrysler put the hole there for this purpose (not mentioned in FSM, nor how to get oil pan out). It jacks up the left side more, but that works to get the oil pan in. I bought the steel rod at a hardware store to load my garage door torsion springs. Rebar would also work. To jack the right side, I cut 3/4" EMT (metal conduit) to length, but it sits on the oil pan lip so do this only for motor mount replacement.