I flew many hours in the 737-200 into short runways in the Pacific region. The key was instant reverse on touch down to the FCTM recommended setting (usually 1.6 EPR for passenger comfort since full reverse was really savage with bucket reversers). Providing the approach was accurately flown on speed and threshold height and touch down close to the 1000 ft markers, the brakes were rarely needed until well below 60 knots. This resulted in cool brakes and more brake energy available if an abort was necessary on next take off. There was always the occasional cowboy who liked to show off by applying brakes seconds after touch down as well as reverse. He pulled up quickly but the brakes were too hot to touch during the subsequent pre-flight inspection. With no brake temp gauges it was impossible to tell if the brakes were actually too hot for the next take off. Cowboys were extremely unpopular because of that.
Idle reverse for noise reasons can be a real trap on wet runways and the pilot would look real silly in any subsequent court action if an accident occured due to his failure to use full reverse on a wet limiting runway and instead used idle reverse and max braking. I accept this is generalising because circumstances differ depending on many factors.