Does the warefare view really hold that all the action in Revelation is not God? That the wrath poured out is not God or God's army and that the fighting of the bad dudes is not God or God's forces? Do Boyd and other proponents really think this?

I can buy a view that there is a huge cosmic war raging in the spiritual and physical realm. I can buy that spiritual agents like angels are demons are real, are personal, are volitional, and are powerful, even powerful enough to sometimes and under the right conditions to cause a tsunami or prevent one.

I just can't buy that God and his forces never act in judgement (because I see this in the scriptures).

I also can't see why God could/would not ever use suffering as a MEANS to the greater good of wooing his beloved children back (because I also see this in the scriptures).

I think that it is clear that God allows temporal pain and death for the greater good of proclaiming and glorifying the message of the gospel.  The term martyr is a witness to the message of the gospel in the face of death.

We have what God allowed to happen to His two witnesses. 

Rev 7

When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up out of the abyss will make war with them, and overcome them and kill them.

We have God giving authority to the Beast to overcome His Church and witnesses who are simply called to persevere in the face of this temporal defeat.

Rev 13

It was also given to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them, and authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation was given to him. All who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain.  If anyone has an ear, let him hear. If anyone is destined for captivity, to captivity he goes; if anyone kills with the sword, with the sword he must be killed. Here is the perseverance and the faith of the saints.

Ultimately, we find that the witnesses did in fact overcome the evil one by being faithful to their message in spite of their temporal defeat and suffering.  The greater good is to glorify God and His message in the face of death and suffering.

Rev 12

“And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.”

It would be one thing to picture God doing the best that man allows, rewarding spiritual foundations and chastizing the terminally stuborn -- both a form of mercy. It would be another thing to picture God with a scale balancing a "greater good" (And please don't take me to put any poster on this thread into a box. I'm just taking note of how jargon can direct our thinking.) against other options. The difference could be the setting aside of stuff outside of the reach of its Creator. Worst would be a picture of God reduced to deciding between the lesser of two evils. (At least "greater good" strikes one as possitive.)

God is full of surprises -- especially in the Old Testement. God is doing things beyond our understanding, and far beyond our capacity to scope them within our horizons. It is best if we remember that everything is within God's horizon.

Rather than thinking about "allowing temporal pain" lets look at what God does  e v e n  i n  that pain. God with every victom. God working through those who take up their cross even in the "hopeless" deadends. Transcending them, making them doorways to eternity.