Father in law told the story often of planting in a field away from his house years ago.  At that time, he had a 4-row planter, lots of people still planting with 2-row.

Looking through a fence row, he saw the neighbor family planting, had to stop and pass through the fence row to see if he was seeing things correctly.

Neighbor family had converted a 2-row horse corn planter by cutting off the long tongue and adding a tractor hitch.  The Fordson tractor would not turn short enough, so two young boys rode on the fender and, at the headland, one would jump off and unhitch, third son would turn the tractor, and other son would re-hitch the planter at the end as two boys turned the planter by hand.

Surprisingly, all this took very little time, as the young boys were not afraid of work, and raced to do the task in a timely manner.

Just thought I'd add this to reflect on how things used to be compared to now.

Stopping at the headlands does not seem like too big a deal compared to that story, does it?

And, no, I never stopped at the headlands, but my rows were not perfect, either.  There are trade-offs on any farming practice.