Before that moment I would manually unwind the cord just like I would wind it up. To make it worse, I even remember wondering why the swivel hook was there thinking it was poor design.
As you should. Otherwise the cable gets twisted a few dozen times every time the vacuum cleaner is used.
EDIT: When I say “over” and “under” above, I’m referring to the technique RedNifre linked to in the sibling comment.
I've seen two different "systems", one where you do a quick pull on the cord and it spins back up, and one where there's a "roll up" button on the machine which winds up the cord, but I've never heard of anything you can do to make the unrolling easier ? Video ? Link? What is this magic you talk of ?
You're thinking of a vacuum cord that automatically winds onto a spring-loaded reel, commonly seen on canister vacuums.
They're talking about an upright vacuum where you manually wrap the cord around two hooks. One of the hooks can be rotated so that it no longer keeps the cord in place.
Look at the two black hooks in front of the yellow cord in this picture:
https://f.media-amazon.com/images/I/61XbxqH6%2BQL._SP523,128...
Note that the bottom one can be rotated upward. The entire cord can then be removed from the machine in one motion.
Look at https://bissellcdn.blob.core.windows.net/cdn-storage-contain... - the ONLY Mention it makes is "quick release power" but doesn't document how to do it (it's a turn the hook setup).
What was the moment of realization like?