I thought I better reply to the original poster, Iceskating. If you follow the link to the article in Riley's first reply, there are lots of studies about wristguards in other sports, the ones I looked at seemed to show injuries were less with wristguards, some studies less in frequency, others showed less in severity. None of the studies are for ice skating.
When I first started skating, I asked my most experienced coach (in his 40s, skated competitively from childhood to adulthood, succesfully, and coached competitive and LTS skaters full time since then, so I reckon he's seen a lot of skaters), if I should wear protection. He said no to pads, thinking that people came to rely on them, and couldnt skate without them. But he said to get wristguards. So I reckon, given that he's anti protection in general, he must have seen a lot of skaters badly damage their wrists.(I am now fairly well padded up, certainly more padded than any skater I know off the internet.) Also, see this article on in-line skating
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8929359/So I think you probably should wear wristguards.
Splints or not? To me the argument that a splint could result in a fracture further up your arm which will heal more quickly than a fracture close to your wrist makes sense. No splints seems to me to be nothing more than a protective glove. A newer, designed by a surgeon splint for snow boarding, the Flexmeter, has 2 splints and reaches around 2/3 of the way up the fore-arm. It's more expensive, and for me looks too bulky for me to want to wear it.Riley has gone with one splint, and extra padding, and would consider no splints. I dont know if anyone can find articles on wristguards with or without splints?
And going by Riley's article, padding with an aircell could be good. If you are going to be falling with a force of 500 Newtons onto your hand. Which isnt very much, presumably because they didnt want to injure their live subjects. Thanks t4 for the additional information on the aircell. I am wondering how they would stand up to a greater force, presumably if it bursts, you might well be better off with foam? I did try to buy some craft foam today, but the shop I went to has stopped selling it. Riley, is craft foam all more or less the same, so I could buy unseen off the internet? I might try getting hold of one of the aircast arm bands, since I sometimes have a touch of tennis elbow but it's been quiescent for a year or 2. And since some amazon reviews complain of them deflating with usual use, maybe they wouldnt stand up to a hard fall.
Looking at my own wristguards, I dont have the handy pocket to stuff padding in, the splint is just bent back. Stuffing open cell foam into the palm of one , and banging my hands onto a tiled floor showed no difference in the maximum force or discomfort. So maybe I need to experiment with craft foam. Riley have you tried comparing perceived discomfort with and without craft foam?