I'm sure there are developer pairings and scenarios where pair programming indeed would be beneficial. The point is that in your case the developers where free to themselves test and evaluate it's efficiency and then chose whether to use it. If that's the case then of course you should go with pair programming. That's different however from mandating pair programming where they'd have to use it whether or not it fitted them personally or that the pairing worked out.

My point is not as much about specific practices but rather about mandatory ones.