Another thought: I've used psychotropics whose direct effect on the perception of pain was to turn it into data -- I could still tell I was in pain, but the pain didn't matter in any sort of immediate way unless it was directly instrumental to listen to it. Standing on a hot surface came through as a meaningful signal, whereas the migraine my glasses were giving me simply got ignored until I could get to a place to take some medicine and lie down (and even then, the perception of recovery was as much "raw data divorced from the intensity of the sensation" as the pain itself had been). I suspect most people, if given the option to experience pain that way permanently, would prefer to do so rather than not (especially since not all sensations were similarly affected, just pain). If my guess about that is right, I'd pile conjecture on top of conjecture and conclude that maybe what's "bad" about pain insofar as people seek to avoid it is just that it's often a non-instrumental sensation that can impair performance for people.