I wonder from what type of "cheese" is made the headset of a bike, because it's sure soft as cheese.
A 120mm ID ball bearing supports indefinite time, a weight of 15tons (wheel bearing on a large truck), and those do not Brinell themselves. Also bearings of a locomotive wheel are also heavily loaded and ideal for Brinell-ing (if you let the truck/train/airplane/car sit a longer time).
I can see that a 30mm thrust ball bearing (axial ball bearing) of 30mm diameter (about as a small headset) can withstand 43kN before Brinell-ing (that is C0 parameter, static load), 43kN=43000N~4300kg=4.3tons (metric ones, normal ones).
http://www.skf.com/skf/productcatalo...ableName=1_8_1
That is 4.3TONS, a bike that is sitting has about 5-10kg load, or 50-80kg with a rider on it (on the headset). Anyway.. comparing it to 4.3tons..
I'd be much happier to overhaul a headset with an axial industrial bearing (industrial means the domain of use, not the size). For now I don't have problems with Brinell-ed raceways on bearing found on bike, but any bearing that develop this issue is a faulty bearing and an "exceptional" poor quality (on a bike or on a train, it doesn't matter)
And a small addition: Brinell was a man who developed a test for superficial durity (hardness) of metals, that is loading a 3kN on a small 10mm steel ball, onto the metal for testing, and measuring the diameter of the imprint circle on the tested metal - thus the hardness now is still measured in HRB (B from Brinell), HRC (Rockwell), HRV (Vickers), with small variations of what is measured (depth or diameter of the imprint, and the "punch": a sphere, a cone of diamond, or a square pyramid diamond)
Now if you want a headset to leave it to your nephews then put an industrial one. Otherwise just change the headset with another one, should last long enough, and it's the obvious fix and also the cheapest fix.