Dropping the pan is not the hard part as there are only, IIRC, twelve bolts holding it on. Getting it out of the car is the difficult task. The exhaust system, at least from the flex pipe forward, has to be removed. The engine must be lifted to be able to wiggle the pan from between the subframe and the oil pickup.
I would suspect more that the car has the wrong dipstick because two quarts of sludge would be hard to accumulate, even with poor maintence.
