I had an interesting conversation with the owner of a local herp store where I bought my snake and equipment. They sell the popular Zoo-Med UTH pads and recommend running them 24/7, unregulated, and for a while I was doing this. I've got an Accu-Rite temp probe in my cage and noticed temperatures in the substrate above the heating pad reaching +120F, which seemed extremely hot! The shop owner wasn't so surprised by this, and merely asked whether the animal goes over to that spot, and indeed he does all the time.

I'm not sure thats good enough reasoning to convince me this is an OK practice however, since I've heard stories of pythons burning their underbellies because they cannot accurately sense surface temperature. I switched over to thermostatic control for my ball python after finding this website, but it seems surprising to hear such vastly different recommendations.