But you can. I don't think you understand how the spell is going to work. It's a totem. You cast it, then the totem cast searing bond on you. It's not a spell you cast on your totem. It's like Decoy Totem or Rejuvenation Totem, you summon the totem and it casts searing bond on you until it dies or expires, there's no further control required. That still doesn't make it better than having a spell totem that does damage and add side effects, such as a freezing pulse totem.
As for the exalted discussion, I've never looted an exalted, but I've had many exalted worth of goods over time easily. Had 40alchs at some point, multiple stacks of chaos, a couple of divines, over 20 GCPs, 150 fusings or so overall counting the jewellers, regrets and scourings etc. Also found 2 chains, which was basically 2 exalteds at the time. People who have many exalted didn't loot their exalted, they traded other stuff for exalteds to make it easier to buy expensive shit or in case they needed them. Now you might not have accumulated that wealth cause you're using your currency as you get it, but there's no doubt you've had enough to buy multiple exalted over the course of such a long time as 300levels, unless you're very very very unlucky.