Yes, this business of AC loads being more inductive than DC loads is a red herring. In a DC magnet, the current is limited only by the resistance, so typically coils of many, many turns are used to get the resistance and ampere-turns up and the current consumption down. The inductance is wickedly high, but the high series resistance keeps the time constants manageable. A moderately large DC machine may have field coil inductances of hundreds of henrys. The quick-break air switch causes all kinds of problems on DC circuits. The quick-break makes the switch smaller but that is the only benefit. Switches for large motor fields have auxiliary contacts to connect a resistor across the coil as the current is interrupted to prevent damage to the coil. Unless you have worked in an old steel mill that ran on 250 VDC you have no concept of how delightfully simple AC control is.
I was involved in the development of vacuum contactors for MV motor control applications. Our first generation vacuum bottles had pure tungsten contacts. We ruined motors left and right, because upon opening in a vacuum there was no arc and hence extremely high dI/dt. Later versions alloyed a small amount of other metals with the tungsten to provide a small but controlled arc to dissipate some of the stored energy in the bottle. We tried other techniques, like using a small amount of inert gas to provide an arc path but the special contact alloy was the most successful. To put this in perspective, the final design, which is used to this day, interrupts 5kV
360 amp loads with a contact separation of less than 1/2 inch. Vacuum contactors also have a specification called "chop current," which is the current level at which the intentionally developed arc extinguishes, typically in the neighborhood of 15 amps.