Aren't the more difficult and shorter readings preferable?

While it is true that no extant manuscript matches the Textus Receptus perfectly, the same could be said of the Nestle-Aland text or any other critical text. The Nestle-Aland text is highly edited, being a composite text of readings from Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus, and other manuscripts, all of which disagree with each other in thousands of places (John William Burgon, The Revision Revised, p. 11). With respect to the differences of whole verses, Codex Vaticanus does not have Matthew 12:47, forty-five chapters of Genesis, portions of Hebrews, the Pastoral Epistles, and Revelation. Codex Sinaiticus does not have Matthew 24:35, Luke 10:32, Luke 17:35, John 9:38, John 16:15, John 21:25, and 1 Corinthians 13:2. Papyri are just fragments of various books. No manuscript or printed edition prior to the 19th century matches the Nestle-Aland text perfectly. The Textus Receptus, though published in the 16th century, still precedes the Nestle-Aland text by at least three centuries.

For more information on the Textus Receptus, please visit: http://textus-receptus.com