Hi Mabman,
Completely understand where you are coming from regarding reading the trail and anticipating where your cranks will need to be. This is a skill that takes time and experience to learn which I have done over the number of years that I have been riding. Also what you say about applying the brakes for Trials type riding is spot on.
The key thing to remember is we are all different, our riding styles are different, our riding skills are different, the bikes we ride are different, even the Levo's we ride are set up and configured differently, the terrain we ride is different and the terrain we 'choose' to ride on and the 'speed' we ride on that terrain is different.
I moved to shorter cranks on my full suspension ebike almost immediately after I purchased it as I found I was riding a lot of completely different terrain that I was just not used to at a 'speed' I was not used to. This resulted in many pedal strikes on the 170mm cranks that were fitted standard on the bike. Trail reading and anticipating where your cranks would need to be became very challenging as the newly found steep uphill terrain that you could now climb on the ebike at speed required you to continually pedal in order to actually get up the climb. Changing to shorter cranks for 'my' style of riding removed most of the pedal strikes in this situation. In really rough terrain I still get the very odd strike but it is almost a non event now.
I still use the methods you describe above where I can which is quite often. However, I believe I have the best of both worlds now where I can work my way though a steep uphill section or root/rock garden without pedal strikes using your method or when I feel like it, SMASH THROUGH IT and pedal non stop at high speed through the same steep uphill section or root/rock garden with my Levo that has 180mm of front travel, 165mm coil rear travel and 137mm cranks.
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