The big advantage of germanium for portable equipment
was that it would operate at a lower voltage than silicon.
For switching power supplies (i.e. free running multivibrator
with no regulation or protection), the lower saturation voltage
of germanium meant less loss and less heating.

Didn't some of those pagers run on a single AA cell? You're right -- even
with a switching supply, that would have been difficult with silicon
devices. At least, if you wanted to get reasonable battery life.