They have no idea what they are talking about as the oil filter is on the bottom of the motor

Maybe you fill it from the side :-D

The micro filter I think is what you are thinking of, top drivers side to the engine and the hard line wraps around.... is sometimes what is referred to as the need to take the engine out to replace, because of the mounting in the mr2 you can't unbolt the line as you can when its in a Camry (taxi).... You can customise a line to make a aftermarket fitting or just drive it for hundreds of thousands of kms until it breaks down (just like a taxi)

Or you can just bolt the Lotus Evora metal line onto the motor before doing the swap.

Are we talking about the vvti oil line here?
What is the maintenance schedule on the micro filter as I have not seen it mentioned before

Hi Toms.
Yes vvti. oil supply line to bank one.(Rear)  I don't know the official maintenance schedule but I have checked these filters on at least 10 of these engines. Some of them had big kms. or very poor oil change history and only one of them had a partially blocked mini filter.  That particular engine was badly sludged  and its main filter was partially  choked with coke material .
I would suggest that if oil changes are done at halfways sensible periods (5000_ 10000 kms) using a decent quality oil and main filter then you could check the mini filter at clutch renewal time.
There has been a bit of BS spoken about this subject by the half informed.
Also remember that it is pretty easy to remove and check the mini filter from bank two (front) if in doubt.
Hope this helps clarify your query .
Cheers.

Well, my patience and luck are now running thing with the car.

Changing gears became hard on the way home from work on Monday. I pulled in at a servo and much to my dismay I found clutch fluid leaking into the cabin from the master cylinder. I don't think its the swap that caused the problem, just a really old part. 

Anyway, I've decided that I want to improve the reliability of the car, and there is a lot of things I missed as I rushed to get it to Sydney. I will be taking it to Craig's workshop soon to spend a day checking and repairing anything that needs to be, as I don't want to keep calling RACQ ;)

I have a rough idea of things to check, but what are some other things I should look at?

Thanks, 

Slave cylinder and flush out the rusty steel line. Check and replace nylon bush and clevis fork and pin on clutch master cylinder.   Remove radiator tanks and rod-out tubes if core is sound.   Please throw out rubbish brake vacuum hose in engine bay !   A-L-T-E-R-N-A   nah fergit that.

+1 for Clevis on Clutch Master Cylinder to Clutch Pedal connection.

Well cars back on the road. Changed fluids and used a new mix of 75W-85 GL4 oil with 2 bottles of Lim Slip fluid. Car drives great now with no more knocking and smooth gear changes. 

After this, my car had more continued wiring issue. The immobilizer was remaining armed at all time, but when the wiring harness was jiggled it flicked on and off. I had no idea what it was until a friend peeled back the wiring harness and we found the earth wire for the immobilizer had been twisted and taped together. 

Fixed that and now I'm back up and running!