Bleeding Drum Brakes

I have a '23 Tacoma with rear drum brakes, and it has always had a very soft brake pedal. You can also hear a very distinct swoosh (rushing fluid) sound when pressing the brake pedal. I finally got around to bleeding the brakes today, with my wife pressing the pedal down (my pressure bleeder cap doesn't fit). No air would come out when I cracked the bleeder, and she said it didn't feel like the pedal moved at all. With the bleeder open, I had her pump the brakes repeatedly without me closing the bleeder, and only then would fluid start to flow out in a "two inches forward, one inch back" sort of way. I then went back to a normal approach for bleeding and maybe got a little fluid out. For the most part though, still mostly nothing with doing the press-crack-close-release method. 

I went for a test drive, and the pedal feel is massively improved, and the swoosh is less severe but still very much present. This got me wondering - do drums just intrinsically have longer travel? If so, the sound and initial travel are normal and not a problem to be fixed. I just want to make sure I choose to ignore it if I should or fix it if I can. I'm also stumped why it wouldn't flow brake fluid unless she pumped the brakes. What's that mean? My gut says air is still in the system since I had similar behavior after swapping a clutch slave cylinder, and it didn't bleed well until I got a lot of fluid through it, but this is my first time dealing with bleeding drum brakes. 

Drums will contribute to longer pedal travel if the shoes are not properly adjusted

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

Drums will contribute to longer pedal travel if the shoes are not properly adjusted

They're also hard to bleed if the shoes are not properly adjusted.

I'll look into it. I bought the truck basically new and only have 28k miles on it now, but I'm cynical enough to not fully trust the factory to have gotten it right. I also wonder if it has a pad retraction mode like so many modern cars do. It does feel like it, so I need to dig in my owner's manual. I remember my E91 specifically mentioned that it would automatically retract the pads under normal driving for efficiency. It said that, when the gas pedal is abruptly lifted, the pads would automatically close in, and you could really feel the difference. The pedal grabbed much higher and much firmer when abruptly lifting off the gas, and it vaguely fees similar with the Tacoma. Not quite as clear, but the E91 also didn't have horse-drawn carriage brakes...

I also did some googling and apparently the ABS on these trucks gets in the way of doing a traditional bleed. You have to do it with the key on, and then it automatically kicks the ABS pump on and helps push the fluid. It is actually super convenient once you know to do it that way. My pedal feel is now much firmer after the initial travel, but that initial travel is still making the swish noise.