It should be obvious to most people by now that drag vs pulse braking is not the determining factor on how much heat is retained in the rim. You can drag brake in a way that ends with cooler rims, just as you can pulse in a way that ends in cooler rims. The rider's action determines the temperature result, it is not fixed to "drag always hotter no matter what".
I'm going to have to disagree with you on this, certainly not from my experience, and not with my experience of how pad wear occurs.
This whole term of pulse braking is a vague one, it sounds like the description of "pumping the brakes" in car talk.
But in the end, unless one of you dudes gets a grant to do an extensive study on this-- which would actually be really cool (sic) to do btw! I can't see Internets description of braking techniques ever really being clear, as I'm pretty certain that how I brake to maintain a safe speed for me, is not what some of you guys are doing, with probably quite different pad and rim temps and wear.
All I know is that over decades, I've consistently gotten really good pad life out of my rim and disc systems, so for me this is the bottom line proof that I minimize wear and overall friction/ heat , despite really throwing out the anchors, probably stopping harder than most of you, just because of my racing experience.
And while this has become a bit of an arm wrestle discussion, I still find it fun to think through braking techniques and putting down thoughts and descriptions of it all.