I read somewhere that the whole "punch down the dough" thing actually comes from old commercial baking where they wanted a tight crumb for sandwich bread, so it stuck around in home recipes even though it kills open crumb. There's a guy on YouTube, I forget his name, who did a side by side test with the same dough, one punched hard and one just folded, and the difference was nuts. The gentle one had holes you could see through and the punched one looked like grocery store bread. I was doing the same thing you were, just squishing all the good stuff out because my cousin showed me that way years ago. Now I barely touch it during shaping and my loaves actually look like something.

That line about her saying she had no idea it was that bad really hits home. I read an article a while back from a co-op extension about how homeowners just don't look up at their trees, so they don't see the risk building. The trick is to put the danger in plain terms, like telling her those dead limbs were hanging right over where her car sits and a windy night could drop one. Some folks still won't move, but once you say it that way they usually come around. I've also started taking phone pics of the bad spots and texting them over, because seeing a crack on a screen lands harder than hearing about it.