I don't do the dentist recommended 2/week but if I stop flossing for over a month I notice significant decrease in my gum health. It becomes excruciatingly painful to brush and this stage and my mouth is full of blood afterwards.
So I'm sticking to flossing pretty often now.
According to my dentist, you can damage your gums by brushing them too hard. I don't floss so he didn't address that, but in both methods, force is being applied to delicate tissue.
The point of brushing and flossing is to remove food particles. You don't have to abuse your teeth or gums to do that.
First I don't floss for a month. Then what looks like gingivitis shows up. And when I brush (normally -- not hard) after this, the sites that have the gingivitis bleed and are extremely painful.
If I don't floss my dentist notices immediately and tells me to floss more often because there's food and shit in there, hence why I tend to floss.