Welcome to the Forums!
You should go introduce yourself in the
Introduction forums, and register your fallout in the registry (if it isn't there already). Plus people love to see pics of our guitars, so you should post some if you have some. If you're not sure how to, you can read the "
Welcome, Read this first" post which was written to direct new users to various "how to" posts etc. Very helpful stuff in there.
I personally haven't tried swapping out magnets, but there was a point where I was considering it - I gave up on it (not that I am suggesting you do the same) because in my situation, I didn't really need to keep that particular pickup for any good reason, so I just bought one that did the trick. But when i was considering it, I considered popping them using a tool typically intended for removing the pins that hold a bike chain together. The tools were fairly inexpensive (the one below sells for $6 or something like that - and with a light file I could mod it in no time to be a handy little jig for both pulling and reinserting magnets.
Never ended up doing it though, but always wanted to do the hack just to satisfy myself that it was a good one.
edit: fixed a broken link