All of the braking forces on a radially laced front wheel using a rim brake will be transmitted through the brake bosses and into the frame. There is some angular force as well being transmitted from the contact patch to the brake pads. This becomes radial force through the spokes. Weight transfer to the front wheel will occur as a result of braking which transfers force through the axles which also becomes radial force through the spokes. There's really no way for a rim-braked front wheel to transfer torsional load through the spokes as the hub will simply spin freely on its bearings as a result of any torsional load present. There might be some insignificant torsional load as a result of the friction in the bearings. If this is a concern, some lube might be in order.

Given the definition of "strength" as the wheel's ability to stay in true and hold a load it seems like a radially laced front wheel would be beneficial to larger riders. There is also an additional weight benefit beyond the ability to use shorter spokes. A radially laced wheel can be built with thinner gauge spokes than a cross-laced wheel and still have the same degree of lateral and radial stiffness. Alternately, a lower total spoke-count could be used to achieve the same degree of radial and lateral stiffness as a cross-laced wheel.

As for half-radial driven wheels, there's some benefit to using the radial pattern on the drive side for a dished wheel. Torsional forces are transferred through the hub quite well, so it really doesn't matter which side the cross-laced is on. There's a great deal of stress on the dished side of the wheel, using radial spokes increases lateral stiffness and lateral strength reducing the likelihood of spoke failure.