Photo Techniques magazine published an article by Phil Davis on presoaks a couple of years ago.(posted 8439 days ago)To sum it up, Phil's findings were that a long presoak caused variations of EI and CI that differed according to brand and type of film while a short (one minute) presoak caused negligible changes.
Ilford recommends against using a presoak, stating that it would wash out the wetting agents in the emulsion, perhaps unevenly, and that could cause uneven development.
My experience is that there's no justification in using a long presoak while a short presoak will prevent airbells in rotary processing and doesn't cause any unexpected development variations or unevenness.