Steve, that's what I like about these questions and answers - it breaks up the cobwebs in my mind about some of the principles I learned decades ago.  Le Chatelier's Principle - I had to look that one up, I had forgotten all about it.   My well-worn, 1969 edition of Skoog & West's Analytical Chemistry text enlightened me about it.

 

One additional suggestion for the distillation problem - if it can be run under vacuum you'd eliminate the high temperature problem.  But it takes a whole different setup and apparatus and you need the source of vacuum, sometimes not always available.

 

-Norman