Okape..very insightful.
As Capt Claret has said, there but for the grace of... On the rare occasions I've been involved in opening the things I've always quitely breathed a sigh of relief when it all went as advertised...these days I delegate door problems to the F/O (coward, me...)...
why do we insist on disarming the slides and opening the doors ourselves? What is the benefit? Virtually all aircraft will self-disarm the slides if the doors or opened from the outside. By allowing ground crews to open doors you reduce the possibility of finger trouble but more importantly, reduce cabin crews' door opening repertoire to 'in emergency only'.
We used to have that as our SOP, it changed a few years back, can't remember why.