Mine is now set up with a stainless steel ball valve, secure and easy to change the oil, I even have a threaded plastic fitting attached to a plastic hose.
Sounds like it works well. There are a number of ways to do it. Even when people just go the pipe route, you just have to make the pipe just long enough so it sticks out just past the frame if you're going to put a cap on the pipe which works just fine or you can put a 90° elbow at the end of the pipe so it will be just past the frame and then you can put a small pipe plug into the end of that so it's already facing down when you pull the plug out to drain it.
When you get the pipe length just right, you can easily screw it in from the elbow.
If it happens to be some odd length, which it usually isn't, that small pipe is quite easy to thread. In fact, many of the big box stores have a pipe threading machine right there and will thread it for you.
He just have to get your measurements very accurate and take into consideration the pipe has to be a little bit longer because the threads will go into the elbow if you use one of those.
I find it simpler to just use a straight piece of pipe and put a cap on the end and that's what most machines that have come in over the years that have had this done have.
I see that the ball valve is more convenient but on some of the commonly available ones that are for plumbing, I would prefer to short the handle on them because there are people out there who put their mowers into situations where it could actually open up and start dumping oil.
I'd rather have something that I have to actually grab a wrench to loosen up.