While the issue I have with this frame is not removal of the wheel, but rather non original spec tires rubbing on the stays, I went back and looked at the frame in question as well as others, and agree that longer stays would have solved the problem. In retrospect, it’s this frame that turned me off on vertical dropouts. Between the short stays and my poor grasp of dishing wheels during the time I regularly rode this frame, the tire clearance issues I encountered have made me avoid vertical dropouts in the years since.
They may have some utility after all.