It seems to me that byte-force-recompile has a simple bug:
(defun byte-force-recompile (directory)
(byte-recompile-directory directory nil t))
(defun byte-recompile-directory (directory &optional arg norecursion force)
It doesn't seem that byte-force-recompile really forces.
byte-compile-version -> "2.26 XEmacs; 1998-10-07."
(XEmacs 21.2 (beta19) "Shinjuku" [Lucid] (i586-pc-win32) of Mon Aug 23
1999 on NEVERYON)