if you have problems using two hands at once and remembering to pick up the solder, it might not be the tool for you.
It's just you have to actually stop to pick this up. And unless you are ambidextrous, you have to move the iron to your leftie. The brass wool is in my iron stand, ready to jab/swipe whenever needed. It's just a little different, and a bit of a pain. I am sure it helps.
My theory why people run into issues with tips is they are hesitant to apply solder to the entire tinned section of the tip when not in use
I totally agree with almost* your entire post, to be clear, including this.
This is one of the many reasons I get away with as little care I do with a CF bevel. Whenever the tip has at least a little solder on it, it covers the entire tinned area. When you use a lot of other tip types... say a bevel, a chisel, or conical... quite often you do not use the entire tinnable surface. So if you are soldering for long periods of time, it might start to oxidize up there, even if you were to cover it with solder when you are done. This the reason for frequent cleaning with sponge or brass I suppose.
They use the sponge then solder for some time, sponging again only occasionally.
Honestly, with the CF tip, I only use the brass wool very occasionally. Usually the reason is to
1. remove excess solder prior to soldering something that is extra-sensitive to bridging, like say an FPC connector).
2. to remove burned flux on the side over the chromed area
3. to remove xtra component that I accidentally picked up.
The CF tip really just keeps ticking. The reason I might occasionally need to resurface my CF is probably because it is so hard to mess up that I occasionally put it back in the stand completely solder-starved without even thinking about it. I mean, until I had received the negative consequences, I started to think the tip was unstoppable. Months and months before those consequences appear, and tada; I have bad habits that sometimes resurface.
*Only thing I disagree is where you say platings. I agree people unwitting damage one of those platings, but I don't think the iron plating is accidentally damaged very often at all. I think that is quite hard to do without having the actual intention. I imagine it's so unlikely as to be essentially impossible. If I were to take one of my conical tips, chuck it in a drill, and hold 400 grit sandpaper over the tip while spinning it at full speed... I don't think it would significantly damage the iron plating, unless I moved to fresh area of sandpaper several times and spun the tip for several minutes. And I would see obvious huge amounts of material removal well before the plating was worn through. It would be obvious I had resurfaced the tip long long time ago. It is accurate, in my mind, to worry more about misshaping your tip than it is to worry about wearing through the iron plating. You'd have to be beyond any sort of reason to damage the iron on accident.
IOW, I don't believe the iron plating wearing through is cause of most tip replacements. It's not the limiting factor in most cases. I think most tips are replaced because they are oxidized, and the user just buys another after trying the "right" methods to clean it, which some (like that brush) can't remove a heavier oxidation in any reasonable amount of time and effort. In over 20 years of soldering, including 4-5 years of part time production soldering, I have never worn through the iron plating on a tip.