Is there a simple account of why technetium is unstable?

From the Isotopes section of Wikipedia's article on Technetium:

Technetium, with atomic number (denoted Z) 43, is the lowest-numbered element in the periodic table that is exclusively radioactive. The second-lightest, exclusively radioactive element, promethium, has an atomic number of 61. Atomic nuclei with an odd number of protons are less stable than those with even numbers, even when the total number of nucleons (protons + neutrons) are even. Odd numbered elements therefore have fewer stable isotopes.

It would seem that simply its atomic number is part of the reason why it is unstable, though this just pushes back the mystery back one step for me: why are nuclei with even atomic number more stable? And why then are all of the elements from 45 through 59 stable — notably including silver (Z=47) and iodine (Z=53) — not to mention higher odd-proton nuclei such as gold (Z=79)?

Even the most stable isotope of technetium has a half-life less than a hundredth that of uranium-235, which has a half life of 703.8Ma:

The most stable radioactive isotopes are technetium-98 with a half-life of 4.2 million years (Ma), technetium-97 (half-life: 2.6 Ma) and technetium-99 (half-life: 211,000 years) [...] Technetium-99 (99Tc) is a major product of the fission of uranium-235 (235U), making it the most common and most readily available isotope of technetium.

It's perhaps an unfair comparison, as uranium has an even atomic number (however that is suppose to help mitigate its instability); but it also has nearly twice the number of protons. This deepens the mystery for me. Even granted that Tc has no stable isotopes, how does it come to be so unstable that all of its isotopes are essentially absent naturally, compared for instance to uranium-235?

(This question is a specific case of an earlier question on synthetic isotopes.)