Oil pressure problems

Baldy, you are scaring me. I just fitted a Cometic gasket to my alternator cover to replace my second hand OEM. Haven't tried it on the run yet so I'll reserve my judgment, but I have noticed it was a poor fit and it stuck out beyond the cover about 1/16 to 1/8" (hard for an Ausy to work in inches) so I had to cut the excess with a blade.
I have to admit they are still a better quality than most non EOM.
All my other gaskets are "now" OEM.

Didn't mean to scare you Bozo just relaying my experiences. I have been rebuilding these KZ engines for going on 35 years and I used to never have to use any type of sealant. I used to put all my gaskets on dry with no issues. I just made sure all surfaces were very clean. Over the last 7 years however I have had to use sealant to get the damn aftermarket gaskets to seal. It's not an issue on engine covers those are easy to replace. It is a pain however to replace the lower cylinder and pan gaskets so with those I always use OEM now. I notice the leaks don't come from the mating surfaces but rather the oil saturates the gasket and it eventually wicks out.

Baldy, I mentioned in this forum previously where my Z1R base gasket literally fell to pieces, it was a known brand, at the time I suspected the gasket was not made of an oil resistant paper. I don't mention the name because I have never been able to prove this but like you I used to put gaskets on dry, now I add a sealant.
Although most OEM KZ gaskets have the silver base which seals very well. They cost a bit but well worth it.
In this particular case where the O'ring was concerned because the oil is low pressure I didn't question whether it'll work or not. When I removed it a couple of weeks back even after ~2 months the rubber was getting hard and the O'ring was flat. I now realize that the engine pressure internally gets fairly high when the engine is revved out which caused my O'ring to blow through pushing the oil back into the engine.