I see you are GS registered and a PA member - that's all I know about you.
May be it does take more force, but it's less likely to damage the innards of the valve.
I once pulled my wobbly tooth out with a price of string. Does that make me a dentist?
You've got no grounds advising people in here through your experience. Yours and a friends house isn't enough.
As for qualifications, - my Forum name should tell you. Experience - looking after my own heating systems for nearly 40 years: balancing; installing motorized valves; programmers and thermostats; converting a gravity/pumped to C plan; relocating an F/E tank for a friend because it was too near the boiler, which had been relocated from ground floor to first floor, so the static head was too small and the system was pumping over. (The installers "solution" was to turn the pump down, which immediately produced other problems); etc etc. If any work to the boiler has been required I immediately call in a trusted GSR engineer.