to land as smoothly as possible, regardless of landing speed and run. This would be the way to land at a very long hard runway, I think Cambridge would be a good UK example
Hmm. I do always regard hearing "backtrack to charlie" as a bit of a failure. I'm sure an instructor once demonstrated a landing to me from which he could have left at bravo with no backtracking - OK there was a bit of a headwind, but the point was made.
The reason for landing on the numbers even on the 2km of tarmac at Cambridge is that it's good practice for your next landing which might be on 500m of grass.