Sometimes. Basically once things get harder and rockier or when I want to keep riding day on day I usually wear my fantastic, stupid looking POC ones til they get uncomfortable (after a few days solid riding they tend to chafe and cause pressure points). And then I’ll either wear my fairly crappy Fox ones or just not bother. It’s not just about flesh, the hard ones slide so much better, that could definitely help with other torque-type injuries.
It’s funny when you’re really used to hard elbow pads and then you ride without- I tap my elbows off stuff all the time, there’s one tree on the glentress seven course that I scrape off every single lap without fail because I’m so used to just harmlessly sliding along it. And likewise I’ll use them for elbow dabs on slow tech or even just when stopping to regroup a group and lean against a tree, so riding without means occasional ouches.
But I do ride without them a fair amount locally- most of our steeper stuff is also soft