If the Mopar engineers had been thinking they would have cast the bosses in the side for the cross bolts and just left them unmachined on the production blocks. It would not have cost any more money but it would've made the blocks capable of being properly cross bolted down the road. They could sold cross bolted wedge blocks over the counter thru Direct Connection. They just weren't thinking that far ahead.
They did produce some cross bolted wedge blocks for NASCAR so they knew how to do it. They just never convinced the production guys to add the material for the bosses.
I have a 426 marine block that has the bosses cast in to the sides like a Hemi block. They are not machined, but the bosses are there.
