Who here has used a sous vide machine

dtc said

I'm sure you would know better than I do what's common among real cooks so I'll just assume I interpreted something I saw or heard and made sense of it for myself.

To me, the only benefit of the rest is that the water is extracted and the salt drawn in. Once it's wiped down and dry, it's just a matter of a few minutes on a hot fire.

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I'm not sure about the salt being drawn in. You can bury a steak in salt, and ultimately it's not going to be that salty. I think it does modify the proteins, making them more conducive to a juicy steak.

The rest I agree with - extracting the water and a dry exterior. If the outside isn't dry, you are wasting a lot of heat steaming off the water before the malliard reaction (browning) starts happening.