No, the hot rod does not stay on all the time, it's only to start the pellets, after that the fan blows on the pellets and it just dumps more in faster to reach higher temps.
Think of it as those electric starters for charcoal, once the charcoal is started it's no longer needed. Then you open the vents on the bottom and top to keep air moving over the charcoal in order for it to stay lit and reach higher temps.
Pellet grills don't have a bottom vent, instead it's a fan blowing air into the fire pot. Some units the fan is one speed, others it varies the speed.
Turn the temp up and it just dumps pellets in at a faster rate and if it has a variable speed fan it will probably kick into high gear.
Hot rod only stays on for a set amount of time when you first start it, after that it's just fan and auger.
I've used extension cords on both my units and never an issue, not saying the Weber unit couldn't have an issue with extension cords but that seems like a lame excuse to me. Pellet units don't use that much power, remember people can run them off of car batteries for a really long time.
My .02
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