I will insist on radiation as well.
Look at all those radiation heating panels in the market. They just radiate heat to the environment. It's just like ovens work in our kitchens. Before the convection ones (and air circulation can still be stopped anytime in new ovens as well), ovens cooked our food through radiative heat.
OK, I get it it's a popular belief, but here's where I think it's flawed.
First off, consider those heating panels, how hot are they? Much hotter than the store, right? Likewise the oven, you need a couple hundred degrees difference to cook the food in normal times. Much more to broil (which is basically pure radiation, without the normal convection (hot air contacting the dinner)). Convection ovens capitalize on this (conduction/convection heating by hot air) to do the same work in less time at lower temperatures. In a vacuum (no hot air) that home oven would take much longer to cook the holiday turkey.
Now to the non intuitive arguments. Everything that's at all warm is radiating IR. It's basically trying to heat up the world that way. At the same time, the world is trying to heat it. You are comfortable in your clothes because while you're radiating heat out, your warm clothes return the favor in addition to trapping a layer of warm air. Likewise, the kitchen table eventually reaches 'room temperature'. Even in a vacuum (although there it takes much longer due to lack of air).
Second idea: Heat is different from temperature. One is calories (or Joules or BTUs) the other degrees (F or C, depending). Because of English, folks confuse 'heat' (energy transfer) with 'heat' (temperature). Heat (in the terms we want here) is the ability to change the temperature in the load. Transfer energy. Temperature is just a measure of the molecular level vibrations, usually eventually leading to melting as the solid structure breaks down and boiling after that as more and more energy is added. To form an analogy that might help, heat (energy transfer) is a flow, temperature a pressure? They are related by other factors, but are different things.
Still with me? Cool. Now for number 3. To make vapor takes energy. Usually a lot. For instance, with water it takes one calorie to raise a gram one degree C (the definition of calorie), about 4.2 Joules for those using the really fun units (the ones named after dead guys......). Say 300 J to raise that gram of water from room temperature to boiling? To evaporate a gram of it off (without changing the temperature of the gas vrs the liquid) takes over 2000 J. This is why "steam burns" are so bad. The steam isn't all that hot (temperature) but has a huge amount of heat (calories, or Joules) to give up as it condenses on your skin. It's also why swamp coolers work so well (evaporating off the water takes LOTS of heat out of the air doing so).
Now to try to pull together....... To make vapor we too need lots of energy. And to keep making vapor for the hit means we need a constant flow of energy that's quite large relative to heating either the load or vapor a few degrees. In VM that comes from the torch heating the copper. When we're making that vapor the copper is basically the same temperature as the bud and vapor (no burning) so the IR heat transfer from copper to load is nearly the same as the load to copper. Not a lot of calories moving into the load that way. Thermodynamics won't allow it (high rates of transfer). It's the need for constant net energy flow into the load and no 'delta T' (difference in temperature to drive it) that disqualifies IR as the prime process here. Yes, it helps MFLB get to temperature faster (when the screen is hot and the load cold) but it doesn't make more vapor, that has to depend on conduction like in VM. Notice how the load in VM is shallow? Lots of contact with the copper? I don't think that's an accident.
Finally it's a misnomer to call herb an insulator in vapes. Thermocouple measurements with Ascent show this is exactly what's happening through loads much deeper than VM. Remember, locally (within the load) you have hot air (and vapor itself) in the game too. There, like I believe as it is in VM, the bulk of the work (transferring the energy to make vapor) is by conduction.
That's my understanding anyway. It's not as simple as that no doubt, but I think the basics are there in useful/understandable terms? Radiation heating depends on hot sources. The formulas involved reflect this factor. The hotter (relatively), the faster the rate. The sun heats us at 93,000,000 miles (give or take) because it's mighty hot. The moon is much closer, but being not much hotter doesn't contribute to Global Warming near as much even though it subtends a larger angle ('is bigger in the sky') and is closer. Moonlight is significant, but 'moon heating' isn't. It's just not that much hotter there, even at 'high noon'. Since the walls of the oven are basically the same temperature as the load their rate of contribution of heat by IR has to be small once at the magic temperature. And we need big.
Or not.
Regards to all who waded through that. I hope it made some sense. IMO it fits in with the way the rest of the world seems to work.......as it should.
Thanks.
OF
My E-Nano and Vapmen are my go-to's - I wouldn't want to be without either. Looking forward to hearing how you get on with the little fella! 
