I'd feel more comfortable
knowing that my engine has had a plateau hone and/or was factory run-in rather than blindly trust end-user Owners' Manual verbage to support my imagination the rings are already set. If I didn't know how or why rings should be set, and have never thought about the topic until influenced by a passing public discussion, then my feelings and opinions that people just 'fuggedabadit' should hold even less weight.
Engines are not biological machines, they don't continue to grow and develop and are not any more 'fragile' when new than with miles, so "feeling sorry" or "merciful", whatever one's anthropomorphic appropriation to the machinery leads them to "feel" doesn't change the drivetrain or impart emotions to it.
Imagine if we brought this attitude into the foundry, who could bear to temper and harden parts what with all the brutal heating and quenching.. maybe they should go easy on the parts for the first hour or two (actually doing that would anneal the part- bad)
I mean, there are people out there who "follow" a light, easy regime and get serviceable life out of their engines, and that's great but they couldn't tell you how or why, they just know it's happened so they'll tell everyone else they're wrong to break in hard. Anecdotal at best, considering they don't know how or why. Conversely, there are plenty of brand new, late model engines from the biggest names out there broken in the same way that coincidentally burn a ton of oil, and the drivers topping off and running sumps low would never ever question the manner in which the piston rings were set in their engine.
My personal rationale is: Why subject yourself to that? Why increase your chances at being a whiney warranty claim? Without the
knowledge that your engine was run in and/or plateau honed, why not ensure it's done by doing it yourself? What's the worse that can happen (seriously, someone think about that) because unseated rings in my brand new expensive engine would
really suck.