Otter's Rock

Very interesting points about why telepathy and pon farr might be linked! And yes, at least in the books, telepathy is why Vulcans don't touch much.

As for engineering pon farr into themselves, that doesn't make sense to me for pon farr as we see it. First, surely it would be far easier to pass a law requiring a minimum of children per person/couple (perhaps with laws encouraging marraige, too) than to genetically redesign your entire series. And second, if you were going to engineer a heat cycle into your people, and the goal is to increase reproduction, having it kill people would be counterproductive. (Because even if they don't marry/have kids now, they may in a future heat cycle, and in any case the goal is to increase the population not decrease it.)