Why do even numbers which surround primes have more divisors than those which surround composites?

Every odd number lies between two even numbers. Accordingly we have two categories of consecutive even number pairs; those pairs which surround primes and those pairs which surround odd composites. Some even numbers can belong to both categories as explained in the example below.

E.g: The pair $(8,10)$ will fall in the category of composite since it contains the odd composite number $9$. The pair $(10, 12)$ belongs to the category of primes since they contain the prime $11$. Hence there will be some overlap on the boundaries of primes as is the case with $10$ in this example. As primes thin out, such overlaps will also thin out accordingly.

Data: Experimental data shows that the even numbers which surround a prime have on a average about $28\%$ more divisors and $7\%$ more distinct prime factors than the even numbers which surround odd composites. For numbers up to $3.5 \times 10^7$,

1. The average number of divisors of the even pairs surrounding primes is $35.39$ while that of those which surround odd composite numbers is only $27.70$.
2. Moreover, difference between the average number of distinct prime factors of these two categories seems to converge to a value in the neighborhood of $0.27$

Question 1: How or why does the act of surrounding a prime give the two surrounding even numbers a higher number of divisors and distinct prime factors?

Note: This question was motivated by the following question on twin primes in MSE.

Code

n = 3
pa = pb = ca = cb = 0
ip = ic = 0
target = step = 10^6
while true:
    if is_prime(n) == True:
        ip = ip + 1
        pb = pb + len(divisors(n-1))
        pa = pa + len(divisors(n+1))
    else:
        ic = ic + 1
        cb = cb + len(divisors(n-1))
        ca = ca + len(divisors(n+1))
    if n > target:
        print n, ip, pb, pa, ir, cb, ca, pb/ip.n(), (pb/ip)/(cb/ic).n(), pb/ip.n() - cb/ic.n()
        target = target + step
    n = n + 2

from Hot Weekly Questions - Mathematics Stack Exchange