Update: I forced the stamped housing off using pry bars. It bent things up in the process, but at this point the middle spindle was garbage anyway, and I'm moving on to the second deck. I just wanted to tear things apart to see what was wrong.
The reason the stamped housing was stuck was there was a build up of junk/gunk around the bearing. In hindsight, and for anyone else in the same boat, I bet if I used a twisting motion instead of a prying motion on the housing, I may have been able to get it off w/o causing damage.
In dissecting things, I also found that the play was coming from the bearing. I cut it open to investigate, and it was missing some of the ball bearings. How they managed to escape, I have no idea.
Anyway, considering this "case closed" as I move on to the second deck with the newer spindles. Thanks everyone for the input.
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