Preheat typically causes less juice consumption, not more. That's just because a shorter ramp up time also means less juice will evaporate during the ramp up period, and you can't really enjoy the vape until after that period (or almost) so, that initial part of the vape pretty much just tends to go to waste. A faster ramp up can also help to increase the time before you need to rewick, and, each time when you rewick, you're also consuming some additional juice for that. But IME, although depending on a lot of things, the flavor and feel of the vape can be noticeably improved by using a preheat, especially if the regulated mod in question can support custom power curves that allow you to fine tune the preheat that you want to use in wattage mode. The downside of that particular feature is that dialing in the settings will be a tad more complicated when compared to just a simple preheat, and, the user-friendliness that goes with that can leave a lot to be desired so it isn't very popular as you'd expect.
That said, the only thing that works well for me in this regard is ArcticFox firmware and the accompanying NToolbox software... all of the other preheat capability type of stuff just pales in comparison to it. After you have uploaded, via USB connection with the NToolbox software, your own custom power curves into your mod on which you have already previously installed the ArcticFox firmware, immediately you will see that these custom power curves do not need to be re-adjusted each time after you press the wattage up button or the wattage down button on the mod. That's because the dots that make up your power curve are percentages, not wattages. I.e., ArcticFox automatically converts percentages to wattages for you, based on the wattage that you set on the mod, and does so without any visible delay whatsoever. Sure, you can't do this kind of voodo with a mod that can't support ArcticFox. But that is precisely why I haven't bought any regulated mods that can't support it.