Healthy Head?

did you ever ascertain *why* the two pushrods were bent?
Negative. Although I did notice that after coming back from the shop (forgot to test before), most of the valve springs were (with two-thumbed effort) compressible by hand - except the ones that had bent pushrods attached to em (+ a couple others that I may have just not pressed hard enough on)... Go figure!

If I'm not mistaken, I see that the process in Dan's guide should fix stuck valves too, so I'll have to try it out.