Many in the NYC area would be thrilled to get 12,000 miles before theft solved the rim wear issue.
That makes me sad, regardless of any other arguments you surely have to agree that mean-time-to-theft is a terrible metric against which to (have to) judge component longevity :-(
At the same time an economic analysis calls for comparing both alternatives. It's not like disc brake systems go forever without service, including replacing pucks and discs, and bleeding lines. If one doesn't do his own work, this can be meaningful dough, cutting into any difference in operating costs
I think the economic argument is too location/rider specific to make such generalisations either way.
For some it's very clear one way, for others very clear another, everyone else is in the middle ground and it comes down to use case and local circumstances.
I DID feel the difference in brake travel from one day's commute in unexpectedly heavy rain. In one stretch of rainy weather I felt a BIG difference over a few day's commute
Surely that's brake
pad wear though, not rim!
Given the wall thicknesses of rims, new to worn out is <1mm or so, even with both sides that's still less than 2mm difference in travel from brand new to 'worn out'.
On the other hand your pads would have anywhere from 7-12mm of friction material per side from new depending on pad, even assuming thin pads @6mm, and excessive wear of a few mm each side you've got over 5mm of difference there, you would feel the pad wear, but not the rim wear.
You can't feel rim wear over such a short time frame, pad wear yes, rims no.
But then I am commuting a 35 mile round trip. That includes about 700 ft of climbing
This kinda illustrates an earlier point though, relative differences in local geography and geology. A flat ride round here is 500ft per 10miles, a normal ride is 750-1000ft/10mile, hilly ones would exceed 1000ft/10mile and a lot of that is out of town roads with lots of road debris and our local geology means it's pretty abrasive, throw in some rain and it eats pads and rims in no time at all.
If I still lived where I grew up I'd probably never wear any rims out, pan flat and more forgiving geology.