I'm yet to have a SDTM from a rejected left ramp, and it used to reject a fair bit.
I've had a couple from the spinner if it doesn't quite make it and it's a dead roll right from the top of the playfield SDTM. This could quite easily be saved with a slide save if you were so inclined.
I used to get most of my SDTMs from the ball coming out of the pops through the 'one-way' gate. I've since fixed that by springloading that gate so it can't happen.
As for essential shots that put the ball out of control, there's really only the trap standups behind the jeep and the jeep itself, possibly the right orbit 'O' shot. Even those are near the top of the playfield giving you some time to react as to where the ball is going. The vast majority of other shots give a feed to a flipper to set up your next shot. Glancing off the jeep usually gives a safeish feed and backhanding the trap targets slows the ball down making recovery easier.
Miss your shot and you could be punished, but surely that's the way it should be?
As for amber target and right orbit being tight. Yes they are tight, but especially the amber target it's in your head. Where the jeep is positioned is going to have little effect on if you were to hit the target. If it hits the target it misses the jeep - whatever position it's in. If it hits the jeep it would have missed the target anyway, simple physics tell you that.
The chances are you don't shoot for the O very often, so get less practice on it. There's no debate that it is tighter than other shots, but it's by no means impossible. I'll often have games where my secondary aim is to shoot the loops to work towards the rewards, I've maxed out at over 50 before now.
As for the 4x super skill shot - take the pressure off hitting the O for the 4th shot by going for the MKV skill shot instead - left ramp, right ramp, upper loop, raptor tower. That gives you 25mil and 4 skill shots towards the high score entry, but more importantly then gives you the chance straight away of a 6 way combo by shooting the helipad for the 5th shot and any one of C target, raptor pit or (possibly even jeep) for the 6th combo and a fossil.
Not every game can have mega ball length times like SM or LOTR where every shot is like a funnel and gives a straight feed to the flippers.