You’re mostly salting the surface when you salt at the table. If you salt the pot, the salt will dissolve in the water meaning it has an even distribution when it penetrate the pasta. Salting at the table means it will have saltier spots than others unless well tossed and tasted until even. But this only solves the distriution issue and not the penetration issue.

If you’re worried about wasting the salted water, you might get some milage with adding the pasta water to your sauce. In this case, using a smaller amount of water increases the starch to water ratio and reduces the total amount of water used. Carbonara used this approach while keeping it all in one pan.

Lightly salted pasta water, I feel, preserves the sweetness of the durum while still hiding the bitterness of the flour. Just my two cents.