No problem here...just thinking about something.

Growing up, my folks had one of those silent mercury toggle wall switches
in their bedroom. It was there when we moved in. The regular switches
around the house made really loud snaps.

Nowadays, switches are nearly all virtually silent.

I presume the difference was all in the detent action not in the switch
contacts themselves (though one might expect the actual contact material
having improved).

So they probably could have made the switches silent if they'd wanted to,
no?

Did people back in the day actually want switches to make loud snaps like
maybe to assure them that the action had taken place?

And when someone did want a silent one, did they not know how to quiet the
detent? A mercury switch just seems like a lot of trouble if there was an
easier way.