OK my first thought with the new pedals and shoes was "Wow these take more force than I had presumed, to lock in and out". Set all the way minimum. Perception is that the force needed is significantly more than downhill ski bindings. Anyways it takes me a number of tries to get snapped in so I quickly mastered small, low speed orbits at traffic crossings.
The pedals and shoes feel fantastic. I was worried about knee soreness etc. from being locked in to an immobile position. I found instead that I'm way more comfortable because usually as I become fatigued on a ride, I begin to struggle with foot placement on the pedals and feel awkward and clumsy on them resulting in a compounded sense of burnout and weakness. These shoes and pedals are wonderful and have eliminated the feeling that I'm draining energy just trying to maintain good form.
So I rarely ride during daylight hours as I am in the Phoenix area and it is summer. Late night or early morning is when I ride to avoid the sun, the heat of the day, and dangerous pedestrians on the bike paths (which is another thread altogether).
I'm pedaling as hard as I can as I crest a little hill, at this spot I have to turn left across six lanes of roadway onto a canal road. The street light by the bridge is out and so is the first light on the canal road. As I head up the canal I immediately realize that I am on the "wrong" side!! I slam on the brakes to make a quick turn across the bridge/dam/pump structure. Just in a split second I decelerate enough to make a 90 without having to bank hard and I stick my foot out to counter balance...... and as you know my foot did not stick out and I flipped over like a domino. I pounded the bridge landing pretty hard but thankfully my body took the brunt and my bike was not damaged. I felt like a turtle for a minute as I labored at getting my feet out as I held my bike up off the gravel. Then came hobbling over the narrow bridge surface in the road shoes whilst pushing my bike. Another minute to get rolling and re-engaged in the pedals. I choose to look on the positive side. It could have been worse, I could have pitched off the bridge in the middle (no guard rails) and gone for a swim with a bike bolted to my feet, late at night with no witnesses. The pedals are so comfortable I had forgotten all about them.
I learned my lesson. The next day Performance had NiteRider MiNewt350 lights on sale, I'm replacing my lower end light.

That's the stuff, Copper-head!

I do hope the problems with clipping in/out are just because you haven't become accustomed to the darn things. If everything between the cleat and pedals is right, clipping in will eventually feel as natural as falling of a, well, bike. At that point, you will just put your foot down while waiting for traffic to clear.

In another week, if you try platform pedals, you'll just feel nekkid.

You didn't mention the clipless system you are using, but SPD should not take that much force. Are you certain you turned the pedal retention to the minimum and not the maximum setting? I have two styles of SPD pedal (M324 and A530). Each is set to a low, but not minimum, retention setting and stepping in is nearly effortless, requiring only light pressure to get the cleat to clip in. Clipping out is even easier as long as I don't try to step forward or straight backward off the pedal. Just a few extra degrees of ankle turn in or out, or a light tug sideways and I can step off the pedal without hindrance. I've also tested how much pull it takes to disengage the cleat pulling straight up. It takes a good hard tug and wouldn't happen accidentally during any type of riding I do, but not so much that they wouldn't disengage in an accident. With the settings I have and multi-release cleats, I've never had an accidental clipout, even over washboard gravel or potholes, but have been able to easily put a foot down without consciously clipping out on sudden stops or on soft surface washouts. If you are using SPD, I'd recheck the retention setting and get multi-release cleats if you aren't already using them.

Kudos on sacrificing yourself to save your bike

A530 pedals. LBS installed them and said they set them all the way light. I will try the other direction... I have had lefty-loosey, righty-tighty issues with this particular store in the past....

Always a good sign.

At least, if they got the pedals on, they understand the difference between left and right hand threads.

My first bike which they replaced, they screwed up the crank arms by going the wrong way so they are at least making progress!

Well you called it. I checked when I got home from work today and sure enough they were one click from max! No wonder I had to literally stand on the pedals to get them in and violently dance like James Brown to get them out. I backed the 3mm out one click from minimum and I can now put the shoes in and out by hand with my bike standing on the work bench. I will take the Allen key along in case I need a little more tension to stay in.

I've leaned down* (accidentally of course) slowly on the grass next to a stop sign a few times myself : )

Go to 2:34

Glad it was a simple fix. Even at low tension settings, the SPDs do a good job of retaining the cleat even during aggressive pedaling like sprints or climbs, but release well in any other direction. While you have the Allen keys out, check the tightness on the cleats.

I find that most people who have bad initial experiences with SPD clipless, do so because the retention and cleats are not set up properly. You should feel comfortably secure, but not attached to the bike. When I get new pedals, I set them to a very light setting and do a few test rides until I get them set about 1/2 turn or so tighter than the point where I can force an accidental clipout. I'm sure there are reasons that some riders want them tighter than that but I've never found a need.

Good Luck and I think you'll enjoy the switch to clipless once you get them set up the way you want them. The multi-release (silver) cleats are coming with many shoes these days, but if you did get the single-release (black) IMHO the small price to upgrade is well worth it. You may also have to play with cleat position a bit until clipping in is instinctive and keeps your foot right where you want it.