The "have to" argument is total bollocks. The human decides "have to". The dog is still choosing between pain/discomfort/correction or otherwise. I don't care how you train your dogs. But let's not pretend that there is a mandatory "have to" stage for some dogs.
Anecdote from my life - Sor and Brae were totally different. I had no issues teaching either complex stays. This involved staying not only in the same area, but holding the same position, around other dogs, as I walked hundreds of feet away, as temptations were in sight, etc. And both were dogs who WANTED things, not laid-back dogs who just wanted to stay there. By the time I asked for more difficult variations, I was sure that I had set my dogs up to succeed in those instances. I've never corrected faulty stays with either dog, even when I was a more balanced trainer in the first few years with Sor.
Here's a video of Brae at 15.5 weeks practicing:
https://youtu.be/37xPBXrRWPk?t=44
Here's Brae at a year of age, holding a sit-stay for nearly a minute as I was interacting and playing flirt pole (one of Brae's favorite games) with my older dog:
https://youtu.be/DS6TI23JLw8?t=59
And then if you keep watching the same clip, he does another stay as I run far away from him.
Stay is actually a great example of a simple behavior that shows how people set their expectations. If someone is getting frustrated or feels the need to correct dogs for breaking their stays (beyond a simple reset and change of expectations), or is getting frustrated at a dog repeatedly breaking stays, it shows the person's inability to adjust to the dog in front of them. Applying a correction demonstrates inadequate knowledge of how to succeed otherwise (which can be said of most training).