I noticed in reading other questions, that pigtails are preferred in wiring outlet boxes. Is this required by codes in certain areas, or is daisy chaining from outlet to outlet considered acceptable?

In a residential setting daisy chaining is perfectly fine.
Despite what anyone says, receptacles rarely fail. YES, they do fail, but it is rare.

In a commercial setting there were 430 outlets in one building and they all suffered from a manufacturing defect that ground was pressure only. Inserting two plugs COULD cause the ground on the other outlet to open. Using one plug in the duplex outlet was fine. Found and test devised by me.

They were all tested and marked as being bad. All in the critical areas were replaced. It was tough to design a test.