That is a likely area to show a little wear I think... because of gravity the vanes drag there more. ...Saying I think.

That won't cause a seal to leak. The reason the seal is leaking is because of the groove that's worn into the crank from the original seal and your new seal hasn't conformed to it yet. IIRC Agrazela had this issue and found something that would fix it. Search his threads for oil leak