I remember that the "cylinder pushed into the frame" story was a big point with Colt salesmen, but in fact that story was invented long after the guns were on the market, and AFAIK was never an intentional "feature", nor do I recall it being mentioned in the design patent. They also claimed that left hand rifling was superior because it was more accurate. And the Colt lockup was superior, of course. Never mentioned was that the Colt system could force the cylinder OUT of alignment!
The clockwise cylinder rotation was simply a carryover from the older Colt revolvers. The New Army and Navy was the exception for several reasons, so Colt did not always use a clockwise rotation.