I definitely buy people with EVs hooning it around the place wrecking their tyres. It is really easy and fun to make use of all that torque. But it's not actually required.
I'm not sure I follow what you mean when you say regenerative braking doesn't have to be put through the tires. The only reason you can do regenerative braking is because the vehicle inertia wants to keep going forward, so you allow that rotation to be used to drive the rotor and generate electricity. The ground resisting that rotation is required for the motor to have a generative load put on it. Either way it's still more you are asking the tire to withstand.