Is Pressure a Good Thing?

When my first three kids were born we were living in a ranch. Now we've moved and have two floors. It’s great and roomy, and climbing the stairs gives me some good exercise, but now that my baby is really starting to crawl and I’m getting worried about the steps. I've got one friend who didn't bother with baby gates even before her princess learned to climb up and down the stairs. She just held her little girl when she was upstairs and stayed nearby while she was downstairs. I've got a couple of other friends that live in homes with two floors that do use gates. One only uses it at the top of the steps. The others use them by both the top and the bottom. I’m still undecided what I want to do. Then, there’s the question, if I get a baby gate, do I get a hardware mounted version or a pressure mounted model? On the one hand I’d much prefer the pressure mounted safety gate so that I don’t have to actually drill holes in the wall that would need to be filled once my Michael can go up and down the stairs safely. On the other hand, do the pressure mounted ones really hold up under pressure (excuse the pun)? My Joshua is big for his age and quite rambunctious. I’m nervous about him trying to climb over and knocking it down. Right now PishPoshBaby has The First Years Hands-Free Gate which I love and am very interested in taking home. It’s got a pedal lever to open it so that if I've got either the baby or a load of laundry in my arms I don’t have to put anything down to get it open. So here are the questions: Which gate model is more secure and safer, and are baby gates for stairs a necessity? Sarah