to the OP: are you sure the rims are hard-anodized, vs. color (cosmetic) anodizing? hard-anodizing takes a long time to wear through, whereas THE ARS is talking about cosmetic anodizing (think those cool-colored rims on urban fixies) that is not durable. It sounds like you are talking about cosmetic anodizing.
Here is a picture of a hard-anodized Mavic rim. The anodizing will wear down over time, but not quickly as you describe. The second picture is of a fixie with cosmetic-anodized rims and a front brake that wears through the anodizing quickly.


If you really want your front rim to match the back rim, you probably need to retrofit your bike to a disc brake as THE ARS says.

On the what-wears-the-rim question: Of course friction stops a bike. But all friction does equally wear on a metal surface. Friction from rubber that is softer than the metal doesn't do much to the metal (although it does wear down the rubber). Whereas friction from grit that gets embedded into brake pads is like sandpaper and wears down the rim material itself.

Some grit will always get into brake pads but this is dramatically accelerated in wet weather. If we lived in a dust-free environment, pads would minimally wear a rim because the rubber is softer than rim.
Anyway, Looigi's original point holds that softer pads won't help stop wearing on your rim, since grit will get into those pads.

[MENTION=340794]Dfrost[/MENTION] - Mavic Open 4 CD rims are ceramic hard-anodized, which makes a harder surface than normal hard-anodized rims like the MA40. These too will eventually wear through if ridden enough, but it will take longer. The Open 4 CD rims are partly targeted toward people who ride in wet weather, so they don't need to worry too much about wearing out their rims.