12Ounce,
I see what you are saying about coolant going directly into the crankcase. From the pictures, if the intake gasket would fail on the lower side, it would drip directly as you said. Of course I have not tested the oil, but see no signs of that. Furthermore, my real identified problem is oil in coolant.
The area just beneath the lower intake is not flooded and pressurized with oil to my knowledge, so I still have a hard time picturing oil splashing into a breached area of the coolant port on the in the intake gasket and making its way into the coolant. Again, I feel like I am missing something here because there has been a lot of discussion surrounding the "oil in coolant" problem being identified with the lower intake gasket. I'm thinking that I could replace the lower intake gasket(which, of course would be a good idea), but it not really solving the original problem.
Perhaps I need a really good way to test the head gasket to rule that out. What is the best way of doing that? Compression test? I did read someone posted about compressed air in the spark plug hole and looking for air bubbles or rising coolant as an indication of a breach from cylinder to coolant passage when there is not external leaks? Thoughts?