I have sensitive tits that seem to be wired straight to my cock! Perhaps because I appreciate tit-work so much myself I also love to give it. It's a great way to warm up and the transition from pain to pleasure is much more gradual than with most SM Play, so it is often difficult to say quite when it really begins to hurt.
The nipples offer a very wide range of action in terms of intensity and duration. I often warm a bottom up with tit-work - starting with very light caresses which sensitise the area before building the pressure.
I also still love nipple play myself. One regular partner and I warm up with a mutual tit-work session which makes me so hot that I thrash his ass even harder when the play gets heavy.
I like to warm up a guy's nipples with my fingers and fingernails, but for sustained work clips are great. As a bottom, I was often made to weep with pain by sustained and forceful work with clips. (And I remember that while being made to cry with an ass-thrashing was like a damn bursting when it came, tit work was more like melt-down as I was slowly and luxuriously reduced to tears.) For me the pain and pleasure never divide with tit-work.
I guess for that reason when I find a guy who enjoys taking hard nipple play, I really like to push the limits. I've had experienced bottoms tell me that they would not have believed how sore they could feel through work on such a small area of their body!
And nipples are so resilient. Even after a long hard play they remain ripe for stimulation. Though strangely after heavy work, while they can become able to sustain further hard handling, a soft caress can be so electrifying as to be almost unbearable. But then that happy confusion of harsh and gentle, pain and pleasure is the very essence of good SM.