I flew turbocharged piston airplanes in an area for one particular employer, which required power off steep descents. The employer taught these at night, with tight high traffic pattern and a blacked-out idle descent to landing. I wasn't comfortable with treating the engines that way at first, but found that the engines used in the fleet (about 30 aircraft) all made TBO without any difficulty.
On the other hand, I flew normally aspirated and piston airplanes for another operator with roughly the same number of aircraft in the fleet, which experienced lifted or cracked cylinder heads and engines that didn't make it to TBO. The second fleet used bigger bore motors and had a wider range of pilot experience (and probably technique, too).
I'm a big proponent of treating the engine as though your life depends on it (it often does). That includes descents in single engine normally aspirated piston airplanes. Most of the time you can accept a higher airspeed, and make a slight (if any) power reduction. If it's turbulent, reduce more power, slow down, descend a little slower, as needed.
If you're unpressurized (pretty much a given if you're in a normally aspirated aircraft), the descent rate should be a comfortable one, at a thousand feet a minute or so. Most descent profiles match about a 3:1 descent: start three miles out for every thousand feet you're going to descend. Calculate your ground speed and descent time to do it, and adjust your power accordingly.
If you're flying a 120 mph airplane, you're covering 2 miles a minute. If you're flying at 10,000', you've got 30 miles to make a 3:1 descent. that's fifteen minutes flying, which only about 700 fpm; you don't need to reduce the power much do to that. If you want to do a 2:1 descent, then that's 20 miles, or ten minutes away. that's a thousand feet a minute, which is about right for a light airplane descent. Adjust the power to keep your speed where you want it at that rate, and you're doing okay. Tweak your mixture up a hair at a time.
If you happen to be flying where there are mountains (which is most places I fly), then your descent will vary with the terrain and destination. Plan and adjust accordingly.