Correction, it is not 30 requests per second. It is 120 requests per second.
I've done further testing and I noticed in the logs the following behaviour when the iRule does not trigger:
Sep 30 08:47:21 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-pollingapi-ratelimit : 172.20.0.67: methodCount=9
Sep 30 08:47:21 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-pollingapi-ratelimit : Adding entry for 172.20.0.67
Sep 30 08:47:21 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-api-redirect : 172.20.0.67 pool_v3
Sep 30 08:47:22 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-pollingapi-ratelimit : 172.20.0.67: methodCount=9
Sep 30 08:47:22 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-pollingapi-ratelimit : Adding entry for 172.20.0.67
Sep 30 08:47:22 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-api-redirect : 172.20.0.67 pool_v3
Sep 30 08:47:22 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-pollingapi-ratelimit : 172.20.0.67: methodCount=9
Sep 30 08:47:22 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-pollingapi-ratelimit : Adding entry for 172.20.0.67
Sep 30 08:47:22 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-api-redirect : 172.20.0.67 pool_v3
Sep 30 08:47:22 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-pollingapi-ratelimit : 172.20.0.67: methodCount=9
Sep 30 08:47:22 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-pollingapi-ratelimit : Adding entry for 172.20.0.67
Sep 30 08:47:22 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-api-redirect : 172.20.0.67 pool_v3
Sep 30 08:47:22 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-pollingapi-ratelimit : 172.20.0.67: methodCount=9
Sep 30 08:47:22 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-pollingapi-ratelimit : Adding entry for 172.20.0.67
Sep 30 08:47:22 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-api-redirect : 172.20.0.67 pool_v3
Sep 30 08:47:22 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-pollingapi-ratelimit : 172.20.0.67: methodCount=9
Sep 30 08:47:22 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-pollingapi-ratelimit : Adding entry for 172.20.0.67
Sep 30 08:47:22 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-api-redirect : 172.20.0.67 pool_v3
Sep 30 08:47:22 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-pollingapi-ratelimit : 172.20.0.67: methodCount=9
Sep 30 08:47:22 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-pollingapi-ratelimit : Adding entry for 172.20.0.67
Sep 30 08:47:22 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-api-redirect : 172.20.0.67 pool_v3
Sep 30 08:47:22 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-pollingapi-ratelimit : 172.20.0.67: methodCount=9
Sep 30 08:47:22 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-pollingapi-ratelimit : Adding entry for 172.20.0.67
Sep 30 08:47:22 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-api-redirect : 172.20.0.67 pool_v3
Sep 30 08:47:22 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-pollingapi-ratelimit : 172.20.0.67: methodCount=9
Sep 30 08:47:22 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-pollingapi-ratelimit : Adding entry for 172.20.0.67
Sep 30 08:47:22 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-api-redirect : 172.20.0.67 pool_v3
Sep 30 08:47:22 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-pollingapi-ratelimit : 172.20.0.67: methodCount=9
Sep 30 08:47:22 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-pollingapi-ratelimit : Adding entry for 172.20.0.67
Sep 30 08:47:22 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-api-redirect : 172.20.0.67 pool_v3
Sep 30 08:47:22 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-pollingapi-ratelimit : 172.20.0.67: methodCount=9
Sep 30 08:47:22 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-pollingapi-ratelimit : Adding entry for 172.20.0.67
The methodCount=9 sticks at 9 on and on until the script times out (it is set to send 10000 connections).
When the rate limiting is triggered I see this in the logs:
Sep 30 08:51:23 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-api-redirect : 172.20.0.69 pool_v3
Sep 30 08:51:23 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-pollingapi-ratelimit : 172.20.0.69: methodCount=30
Sep 30 08:51:23 bigip01-game-stg info tmm[12864]: Rule /Common/v20-pollingapi-ratelimit : 172.20.0.69 exceeded max HTTP requests per second
(I have our staging environment set to 30 requests per second for testing).