Whether or not frequent watering is good depends on the perspective from which you view the question. From the grower's perspective, to some it would be an annoyance, others welcome the opportunity to nurture their plants. I suppose there are those who look at plants more as decorations than green friends. As such, they would be thrilled if someone came up with a contraption that limited "care" to spinning the plant and filling a water reservoir every month or two. Most of us enjoy the effort that goes into keeping plants as healthy as possible because the effort adds to our sense of being a better nurturer, which is the main reason most of us grow things.

Now, from the plant's perspective, it's difficult to argue against the idea that plantings with grow media that require frequent watering are generally better because they offer better opportunity for plants to realize a greater measure of their genetic potential. Put another way, they are far less likely to be limiting as a result of holding excess water at container capacity.

Container Capacity -

is a measure of how much water the grow medium in a pot or container holds at the moment it has stopped draining, after having been watered to the point of complete saturation. When plants are at 'container capacity', the medium often supports a layer of grow medium that remains 100% saturated (a perched water table [PWT]) which occupies a layer of grow medium at the bottom of the pot, defying the force of gravity and refusing to drain. The ht of the PWT and how long it affects root function is usually key/critical in determining what opportunity a plant will have to realize as much of its genetic potential as possible (within the limiting effects of other cultural influences). The factor that most affects the ht of a PWT is the size of the particles from which the medium is made.

So, the faster you can rid the medium of a PWT, the less potential there is for limitations associated with it. Let's say you're reasonable fit and can run five miles. Try it while breathing through a drinking straw and you'll have a sense of how severe limitations associated with a significant and enduring PWT can be.

FWIW - I tend to grow as many plants as possible in clay pots. I've never soaked one before using it and haven't had issues with all the plant's water being sucked into the clay. A very large pot might hold an ounce or two of water in walls and bottom of the pot - so not much. And, most of the water that is absorbed into the terra cotta comes directly from water occupying the PWT, so that would be a good thing.

Perlite reduces water retention primarily because it occupies a spatial position that would otherwise be occupied with media particles that hold water. It's value is greater in the fraction of the planting that supports perched water. So, if you have a medium that supports 4" of perched water and you mixed it 1:1 with coarse perlite, you would probably reduce the ht of the PWT by an inch or so, but the volume of water in the PWT would be reduced by somewhere near the volume of perlite added. This means that the medium would return to it's most productive state (damp/moist with no PWT) faster, which is a good thing.

Al