We have an old S-10 with the filter sitting horizontally and buried. No matter what you do, the oil drips on everything on its way to the ground and it takes two drip trays to catch all the oil. It's usually dripping off of my elbow too before I'm done.
You can put a small block Chevy in these old trucks so I don't know why they had to mess up the little 2.8 this way. Talk about complicating a simple thing but GM is a master at it.
On the other hand, our '05 Jimmy has a remote oil filter up behind the front bumper and is super easy to do.