Yes0, they'll boot someone off the plane in the nicest way.
The worst experience I ever had was in first class on Virgin Atlantic - the gate agent was the biggest jerk I’ve ever encountered.
Long story short, after getting caught trying to give our seats away to another couple (thank god MrsT used to be a gate agent, because she politely but firmly told him, “I know what you’re doing and…no.”), he put me in a broken seat that was supposed to lie back into a bed but didn’t, so he gave me a couple of hundred bucks in duty-free vouchers.
Then, right when we were about to take off, he came running onto the plane and said that maintenance reported the seat was working and demanded back half my vouchers. I seriously thought he was kidding, like making a joke, so I playfully said something like, “Come and get ‘em,” or whatever, not threatening at all, and he said he’d hold up the flight and have me and the vouchers dragged off, all in one go, if I preferred.
As soon as we took off and leveled up…seat broke again! Best part was, the flight attendant saw the whole thing and apologized, said she’d mention it, he’d been a little Napoleon to other customers in the past, and gave us a couple of free bottles of decent champagne and a few other items from their duty-free stash. We walked off there like we’d been to the grocery store.
