Hi Jeff,

That was a fortunate move on your part to add extra length battery cable. It’s wise to do that on any rewire job because stretching wire or a length of steel doesn’t work out very well.
Same for paper stretching machine from yeomen and trying to get relative bearing grease from a gyro repair shop is a joke. (:-)

Yes the alternator was assembled only 90 degrees as it has four bolt holes to clock things around on the front housing. The front housing may or may not have locator tabs so it could be the whole thing to be mounted up side down for mounting on the opposite side of an engine not just a small rotation.
I surmise that the stator was pushed into place first within the pulley side housing.
The wires coming off off of the stator windings decided where the rear housing got located.

That was a cute statement label provided in these instance of application.
I have seen the battery wire come up from the bottom more often but I like your way much better.
It’s farther from the engine block and put the D+ wire up where you can access it easier.
If it was all below its sight unseen and forgotten plus get more dirt get caught around the back side and that can affect cooling.

Yes it does take more wire and and Bean Counters don’t like that and cosmetics of the engine bay with all the plastic covers today hiding sins very well.
They don’t want you to realize how cramped the work space is in there.

As far as voltage being repetitively precise under certain or loads don’t expect to be “dead on” as there are too many variables involved. Just live with a .5 volt spreading.
Most it involves the battery because it’s chemical and a digital voltage meter circuitry sensitivity varies internally and it has a chemical battery.
The future should be in super capacitors but I waiting.
We had a heads up on that dream with the movie Back To The Future. A Flux Capacitor. (:-)

Phil