Welcome to the 2.8L and 2.9L V6 world LOL. After 20+ years of dealing with RBV's the oil/filter change isn't so bad anymore, but the oil filter location has got to be about the dumbest, obviously the engineers never have done an oil/filter change in their whole life to realize its a PITA to get to a filter between the exhaust and frame rail...getting to the drain plug in the oil pan is simple, getting something on the filter to loosen it up not so much.
Although, I have to give dumbest idea of fluid checking to Ford once again with my 08 Explorer which has a dipstick for the transmission, but you have to crawl under a running vehicle receive 2nd and 3rd degree burns from the exhaust and catalytic converter to access the dipstick which is about 2 inches away from said exhaust....would it have broke Ford to just put a regular dipstick in the dang thing, I mean come on my 2005 Ford Taurus has a dipstick for pete sakes. You'd think a higher end SUV would have been better thought out LOL.