One thing that occurred to me about those too-stiff snaps this trip was that there are little silnylon fabric tabs set kind of annoyingly right where you want the snaps to go, i.e., I typically have to fiddle a bit to push them out of the way to get the snaps closed.

So it just occurred to me (picture bell ringing and light bulb appearing over head) that the little tabs are intended to go between the snaps to make it easier to open them. Kind of weird if so, but I tried with one such tab in a snap and it did close that way --- I was in a hurry at the time and didn't stop to see if it therefore opened more easily, but ... maybe.