No, you're remembering right. That practice came out decades ago when friction materials technology was young and the materials used for brake pads were not as good as now. And like so many old practices it has been faithfully handed down through the decades to now when our materials are not the same as then and do not respond the same. The pads used now will polish up and look shiney early on but it's all but impossible to actually "glaze" them unless you get some external contamination on them and that stuff bakes onto the pads and messes them up. When I got my first set of Hayes disc brakes I went out to the local steep park and went up and down the hills there twice using the brakes liberally. On the way to the park stopping took a pretty fair squeeze. After the runs down the hill and the systems cooled off it was a one finger wonder to use them.
Similarly back when I was racing motorcycles to "break in" the new pads it was a case of a combo of seating the new pads to the rotors as well as getting them hot. The first few laps were to seat the pad faces to the rotor shape and then the next few were to heat them up. Come in and let 'em cool off and then they were fine for the rest of the season.