I use one of those marine engine oil through the dip stick sucker deals as my vacuum brake bleeder, it has a lot of capacity, and pulls a good vacuum. I never have someone to help with bleeding brakes. And have never bench bled a master cylinder, tried it one time and it just didn't' work and made a mess. Pressure bleeder? very easy to ruin some paint with them when the seal feeding the MC lets go, been there done that in the past. Vac is the cleanest and safest way to go. A mushy peddle can also be the adjustment of the rod into the mastercylinder, positioning the piston in the wrong area.
