2000 Forester, brakes require extra force

I have a 2000 Forester which has always had noisy breaks since I bought it used a few years ago. Because I learned to ignore the noise, I ended up eating my rotors when my pads really did need changing. I had new rotors put on and some ceramic pads that they said would reduce the noise. However, now my car requires greater force to stop than it did before. It seems to stop OK, but I have to push pretty hard on the brake to get it to do anything. I took it back and had them bleed the brakes again, but that did nothing. What might the problem be? Is it simply because the ceramic pads are less grippy?