On the trim question. The 71 & 72 had the half black out of the trim. It is more of a Satin in my opinion. When the government told Ford they could not raise prices on vehicles for 73 with the extra crash and emission equipment they removed the black out on the trim and the tail lights to save a few pennies. Of course they sell it to the customer as styling changes.
I hope you had the trunk on and in position when you painted the car. That is why Ford did that much easier to align before paint less chance for damage. If you have ever seen them on the assembly line doing alignments of trunks, doors and fenders you would think they are going to ruin the parts. They put blocks of wood in and push down to twist the trunk. Pull it sideways to bend the hinges into alignment. Yes there is some play in the bolts but not usually enough to get it right. They have special pry bars for the doors that they hook over the latch on the door jam and into the door latch and lift or push down to bend the metal holding the hinges. When the fenders are put back on after paint they put flat bars in the gaps and pry and hit with huge rubber hammers. They did the alignment in seconds that we probably take a day to do. You should have the car on it's wheels with the drive train in place before doing your final alignment to bend the body into it's working shape.
On today's assembly line there is much less adjustment than in the 70's. When you build up a body you stack up tolerances and there has to be some adjustment made no matter what the part tolerance is. If you were to try to build a car that did not need front end alignment it would be impossible.
Remember the old Pontiac Fiero? They would weld up the under body on that car then put in this huge fixture that actually came in and machined mounting points for the PLASTIC body panels. When they tried just welding and assembly it warped the outer plastic panels and look like it had been in a crash when new.
Don't be afraid to put some grunt into the force to move it. ALWAYS ALWAYS fit the panels before paint. Yes the front fenders, hood and valance panels were painted then installed. The trunk was not. They had a sub assembly fixture to put the fenders, grill, valance and all that together before sitting on the car which helped them start out closer than we can.
David