That's the conclusion I came to. It's not like there's a couple bends, there's quite a few. And when the line starts taking on a 3 dimension shape with the bends not all occurring in one plane it gets complicated. Then you test fit, adjust bends, add more, by the time you've made the whole line the time spent doing it is probably worth the cost of the pre-bent line. At least it was for me.
I'm not a fan of running soft lines, the fuel additives change enough that you can't always count on a soft line's long term resistance to the fuel. And there's different qualities out there, even with just the 3/8" sections of rubber line at either end of the hard line I've had issues. I just had the 6" section of line between the sender and the hard line split, it was only 5 or 6 years old.
I figure the stainless hard line will last as long as I have the car, it won't rust, the fuel won't ever attack it, and I only have to buy and install it once.
