two ways to go at it.
convince the ol' lady to let you drop the pan & clean the stuff out. While its off, pull a cap or two and inspect. Better to know you're not going to window the block while cruising down the road with her in the car than to worry about it. But it's your (and your lady's) conscience (and budget).
The other way would be to say screwit. Stick a magnet on teh filter and glue a couple onto the oil pan sump. Speaker magnets work well. I actually have a few magnets at work made specificatlly for oil filter use...might try one in an FL-1A filter one of these days. Looks like it'll fit just fine. Speaker magnets work, and also those cheap Neodymium magnets that can be bought off of ebay. Super strong, small, lightweight, and you won't need to glue one to the pan. They stick on their own...get the right one (flat) and good luck getting it back off. I think magnets are kind of cool to mess with but thats just me.
My experience with pushrods was similar. I didn't pull the pan. Usually when they wear like that, the metal is pretty fine. Goes right through the pump pickup, through the pump, then usually the filter catches 99% of it. But if you don't get the pan off, buy a few extra filters and change it initially, run it a while, then pull the filter & cut it open. You'll be watching for copper/brass filings. If you see any, your bearings are eating themselves up and it's time to pull it. The magnet on the end of the filter also helps trap the ferrous metals (iron/steel) and helps you see them easier when opening up the filter. My experience...same thing I did, change the filters often, didn't see anything out of the ordinary, ran it for another 70 some odd thousand miles before the bores were totally shot.