Anyone remember when Daniels would just enter a thread and say "10 foot pole"???
Brake nerds call the pad/lining-to-rotor/drum interface "the friction couple", and my experience is that some stuff needs no special handling, and some stuff needs symphony music and a 15 minute shoulder rub to get it working the first time, else you are going to have a bad time.
"Pre-bedding" ain't really "bedding" at all, it is really what I would call "post-cure" or (I'm about to invent a term here--->) "pre-outgassing" in an attempt to combat all the weird stuff that happens the first time you bring the friction material up to 700, 900, 1100, degrees in REAL USE. As far as I know, "pre-bedding" is, essentially, a "baking" of the brake pad after the initial manufacturing, curing, cross-linking, whatever-the-hell-else-is-happening-ing during the making of the friction material and joining it to the backing plate.
80% of the time I've had "bedding" problems, I'd say it is the rotor's fault - usually by being too polished, or oily, or being coated in something weird (Chinese "galvanizing"?), or by not being flat (i.e. half-inch wide scorched and blued surface on the inner or outer "edge" of the rotors).
The blanchard grinding (orbital swirls) found on some rotors is intended to improve "bed-in" on the street. I think it causes problems in commuter-car racing, especially if you are running a compound that DOESN'T wear away rotors quickly. Why? Because the poor pad is trying to grab only those high spots of the rotors, and it is like you have 10% of the rotor surface working for you until you get the swirls worn away.
My personal #1 brake bedding rule: Overusing the brakes before they are "bedded" is bad. Overusing them more isn't helpful, although some compounds (high rotor wear compounds) don't seem to care at all. If you have scorching and bluing on your rotors after your "bedding" session, you have overused them. I HATE running untested "unbedded" brakes for a race. Overusing brakes is like overdriving tires. Once they start to go off, back off and let them come in, especially if they are new. Just my $0.02 opinion.
Disclosure: Carbotechs were my pads of choice, and I am friends with those people. If you also like Carbotechs, my experience is that rotors that you get "bedded" to work with Carbotechs will continue working for several sets of pads. The rotors will work so long that they eventually will get thermal fatigue cracks large enough that pizza slices of rotor will break out (this is known as "Pulling a Murdick" in GLDiv). Get junkyard Mazda rotors with a zillion heat cycles of "toughening", turn them down to get a fresh flat surface, and you should get several sets of pads out of them.