Every single action that was available in the contextual menu (hidden "behind the ctrl key") was supposed to be available elsewhere as well, typically as an actual app menu item.
Or under pull down menus... or context menus... or...
Force touch just seems like a different form of right mouse clicking.
I know a few people who - even after trying - can't make "force touch" work properly. I love it and try to show them. But they can't seem to make the effort to learn it.
I know at quite a few people that have not upgraded their iPhone 6-vintage phones simply because they found 3D/force Touch to be a really significantly negative feature, and just flat don't want it.
Are you saying they are...holding it wrong?
The idea wasn't to hide or show the context menu -- but to have those actions NOT need the context menu.
E.g. to delete you didn't need to "right click, send to trash". You dragged the item to the trashcan.
That doesn't make sense at all to me: The right click button on a mouse is visible.
The Mac way of hiding it behind the ctrl key was non-discoverable and non-obvious to me.