Yep, just a touch too hot, and maybe a bit light on the power. For most circumstances you're fine but I've been frustrated on occasion with a 50W station when soldering to a pad directly on a thick ground plane.
Desoldering with an iron is tough, much tougher than soldering. I'm also going to guess you were not using flux. Even with a really good iron you can easily wreck parts when desoldering. Especially with lead-free solder, which really, really doesn't like to flow, especially after the flux burns out.
So you *should* be able to solder just fine, but you will need to move briskly. Tactile's description is spot on.
