Modern carbon brakes do not wear per second of application but per cycle. Three short and light applications use the brakes more than one long hard application. That's why autobrake is favoured. If you can judge yourself where you gonna leave the runway, and apply only once, you might damage brakes less. With autobrake you brake a) when it starts and b) when you start braking manually.
There is also a dependence of temperatur: below 80 and above 250, the wear is least.
Nowadays airlines favour brakes instead of reverse, due to fuel and noise issues. Airbus wanted to design the A380 initially without any reverser, but opted against it after airlines wanted them. Now only two of four engines have reversers.
Dani