sloppy Z bar linkage.....probably pilot error

the slop is NOT the problem! and you can't do anything about it anyway, cuz the only way to get those ends over the pins is if the sloppy holes are there. That slop is on the backside of the hole where it doesn't matter if it's there.
The clutch pedal always sits lower than the brake pedal, mind you not usually 1.5 inches but more like half of that.
Also, on the factory system;
you never have to push the clutch all the way to the floor to get the departure required. With the freeplay properly set, departure usually comes about half-way to the floor.

Are you sure your pedal set is from a V8 car. The V8 pedal when parked, will pull the downrod up higher, which pulls the TO fork closer to the engine side of the window, which pulls the TO bearing further off the fingers. Then when you readjust the freeplay, the V8 pedal has more available travel, and gets things moving sooner.

Parallelism refers to the Z-bar... not the fork!