I think that septuagenarian homeless people wandering a jungle were in tune with some fairly wild pain experiences, which are for the most part unheard of in first-world places today. It's troublesome to assess.
Now, given the renunciate culture of that time, arupas seem to be necessarily attainable despite pain, so this conflict of jhana and pain strikes me as evidence that jhana is a different sort of thing. If so, it might change what the pursuit of Samadhi looks like in cases of pain - massages and sunbathing in order to assuage the level of pain just enough to allow for jhana?
Modern methods such as yoga and medicine are probably enough for this purpose; I tend to think the Buddha would have been happy to allow hatha yoga as a simple calisthenic alongside walking up and down, as long as there was no confusion over metaphysical claptrap, given its pain-relieving capabilities (study linked above). We know he allowed three meals to the Sangha early on, so that would have been his own arrangement when the group of five left him, and it was because he needed a state suitable to striving.
So it was solely due to the requirements of jhana that such eating was allowed, wasn't it? I mean, he first checked out what removing lunch and then dinner would affect before he brought it to the Sangha as new Vinaya, so this tells me that the Vinaya is designed to be as simple and renounced as possible while still allowing for jhana (and the rest of the N8P), which pain (and asceticisms thereby) tended to obstruct. I tend to think he limited his own eating due to a burgeoning pre-infarction, and noticed that it was beneficial generally.
I would conclude that jhana can be attained from states of moderate pain and also moderate pleasure (those householders who could do jhana showcase this aspect), but too much either way and it's an insurmountable barrier. Whether this chronic pain or that chronic pain fits the bill is a matter of differing mileage.