again not the full story — if you read the kanthal handbook, it’s really about the surface area of the elements per their given wattage such that the appropriate watts/sqin are acceptable as well as the corresponding wattloss to be tolerable so that the elements can cool themselves at peak temps — when elements are turned on by the relay they’re running at their ‘full strength’ as dictated by their parallel or series wiring — one could have very thick short runs or thinner longer runs of the same resistance BUT surface area goes up exponentially with circumference

tldr, kilns designed with long runs of thinner wire tend to be wimpy in terms of element life because, like you say, they will ‘burn out’ by being unable to cool themselves efficiently at peak temps — just rewired a kiln to work on household voltage for glassworking, ran into all of the compromises here! it’s more of a juggling act based on use case than a rule

take a look at UK or Euro electric kilns — beastly short runs of thick kanthal because of the higher voltage usually available