Well at the recent ebay $500 NOS P&C price, I would not be inclined to put the pins on the front, no matter the little arrow, where with decades of experience coming out and the factory realizing they made a mistake. After market now copy the old factory stuff good or bad and now can't even label them correctly on the box. Golf calls it 2101 but is clearly the first style piston.
Wrong piston?........how about putting a C grade piston in a A grade bore????? Even the 1980 shop manual tells you that is a NO NO....Maybe my shop manual is no good due to the chocolate smudges.
And I would still suggest deburring the exhaust port to prevent the ring catching.
I guess I'll get to try all this out on my 298XP. The piston is a bit ugly in the port. I have no idea of the history of work (or butchery) previously done to this engine. It is at least twice as hard as my stock 2100cd to pull over. I'll have to borrow my friends bore gauges so I can see if there is a size mismatch. Of course running the engine lean to over 1300 EGT is a formula for disaster as shown above...