Special operator-ideal approximation properties (APs) of Banach spaces are employed to solve the problem of whether the distance functions S ↦ dist(S*, I(F*, E*)) and S ↦ dist(S, I*(E, F)) are uniformly comparable in each space L(E, F) of bounded linear operators. Here, I*(E, F) = {S ∈ L(E, F) : S* ∈ I(F*, E*)} stands for the adjoint ideal of the closed operator ideal I for Banach spaces E and F. Counterexamples are obtained for many classical surjective or injective Banach operator ideals I by solving two resulting ‘asymmetry’ problems for these operator-ideal APs.