Hot take: pesto pasta is a mid use of pesto. The 200 F pasta going straight into the pesto cooks the garlic and throttles its intensity. The best use of pesto is as a dipping sauce for crackers, or as a spread for bread. You wanna use pesto optimally? Blind bake a plain round of pizza dough with nothing on it, let it cool, and spread the pesto on it in a thick combined-cheese-sauce layer. Just like the Romans did. They knew. They understood.